One last thing before you leave. . .
Finally, under pressure from Congress, the media and the public, DHS has decided to correct this absurd situation. In a matter of months, DHS plans to begin capturing the same biometric data from departing foreigners, matching that data against the information it collected upon their arrival, and keeping track of which visitors have actually left the country.
It would seem to be a good idea, but I’m not yet convinced that DHS has thought all this through.
The department plans to treat exiting foreigners differently if they leave the country via aircraft and ship versus if they leave the country by road, ferry or railroad.
Essentially, if a foreign traveler leaves on a commercial aircraft or ship, DHS will expect the commercial airline or shipping company that’s transporting them to capture the traveler’s fingerprints and facial photo. "When an alien arrives at the international departure air or sea port, the carrier will collect the alien’s biometric data," said DHS in a proposed rule it unveiled on April 23. "The biometric data and the associated unique identifier will then be transmitted, within 24 hours of departure, to US-VISIT for processing."
So, in this instance, DHS will rely on commercial carriers – rather than the government itself -- to perform the important task of capturing the biometric data.
What troubles me is that with a different DHS program, the controversial Secure Flight program that will compare the names of air travelers against the government’s consolidated terrorist watch list, DHS is moving in precisely the opposite direction. Rather than relying on the commercial airlines to perform this data capturing and comparing function, as they have been for years, Secure Flight now envisions bringing that security responsibility back into the government’s own hands. Once Secure Flight is launched, TSA itself will compare air travelers’ names against the watch list.
So which is it, DHS?
Should commercial airlines (and shipping companies) be trusted to perform these security tasks or not?
For the remaining group of departing foreign travelers – those leaving through "land ports of entry" in personal cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles or as pedestrians – the challenge of capturing their biometrics data seems even trickier.
Even DHS acknowledges the difficulty of capturing data from some passengers riding in an automobile – those foreigners who need to provide their fingerprints and facial photos – but not others.
The enormous numbers of people who cross U.S. land borders presents another challenge, says DHS. Of the 350 million land border entrants each year, about three percent – or approximately 10 million people – would need to have their documents inspected and their biometrics captured. Identifying that group within the larger 350 million will be no small feat.
Border crossings into Mexico and Canada come in all shapes and sizes. At some border crossings, there are buildings, fences, elaborate infrastructure and vast armies of uniformed personnel; at other crossings there is a gravel road and a swinging gate. Determining what type of sensors and detection equipment, and how the captured data should be transmitted to the US-VISIT program, will be vastly different under those two scenarios.
DHS solicited ideas and recommendations from industry as to how it can best manage the departure of foreigners through land ports of entry. I’ll be very interested to see what suggestions the vendor community comes up with.
In the meantime, I congratulate DHS for finally tackling the flip-side of this important immigration control function, and wish it well as it grapples with a monster of an assignment.
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