DHS Finalizing Plans for Airport Exit System

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it’s finalizing plans to collect information from foreign visitors exiting the country through the nation’s airports. DHS plans to collect fingerprints or eye scans as foreigners leave.

Once finalized, the plan will go to President Obama’s desk for final approval and inclusion into his budget for next year. The cost of the plan has caused delays while DHS decided whether to place the plans $1-2 billion price tag on the airline industry or on taxpayers. Because of cost, the exit system will not be at land borders which is where more than 80 percent of foreign visitors exit the country. But, DHS said that the airport system will help immigration officials identify visa overstays.

An exit system was mandated by Congress in 1996 and then resurfaced after the 9/11 attacks. Researchers estimate that 40 percent of the nation’s 12 million illegal aliens are here on expired visas. How the Obama Administration handles the mandate and its hefty price tag with growing deficits will shed some light on his administration’s commitment to securing the borders.

“A biometric exit system is critical to tracking the arrival and departure of foreign nationals — not just through a paper trail, but through fingerprints, photographs, and other fraud-proof biometric identifiers,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in an e-mail statement.

US-VISIT collects biometrical information when foreigners enter the country. They say the 200,000-400,000 foreigners who overstay their visas each year are a higher priority security risk.

“The idea that there are serious national security risks that we’ve identified but we haven’t pursued because we don’t have an exit system is simply not plausible,” said Stewart A. Baker, who was DHS undersecretary of policy from 2005 to 2008.

Officials from Customs and Border Patrol, however, are critical of the plan since it does not protect land borders.

“If you’re doing this for immigration control purposes, how can you have a complete system without doing land borders,” said Robert C. Bonner, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2003 to 2005.

For more information, see the Washington Post.