Border Security?

By Bill West

By Bill West

Biometric border security enhancements recently announced by DHS are solid improvements, but more needs to be done. More than three years after the 9-11 attacks, US border enforcement agencies are using an automated system that accomplishes only part of the mission.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced that its U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT) program was expanded to the Nation�s fifty busiest land border ports of entry. Last year, the program was implemented at 115 international airports and 15 seaports. US VISIT is the biometric border security system put into action after the 9-11 attacks. The system requires alien entrants to submit to digital fingerprinting and photographing, as well as having their biographic, passport and entry data information entered into the DHS computer network.

The digital fingerprint process is based on the two-print system used in the earlier-established Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) used by INS, US Customs and other border agencies before 9-11 and the creation of DHS. AFIS and the US VISIT system does not yet interface with the ten-print system used by the FBI�s National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which houses some 47 million or so records. This is one of the critical shortfalls of the system that was recently highlighted in a report by the DHS Office of the Inspector General. DHS officials state that an effective interface of the fingerprint systems is likely years away.

The concept of US VISIT is sound. An alien seeking entry into the US presents his/her travel and identity documents to border inspectors, who then take the biographic and biometric information, enter it into the automated system for comparison against known �bad guy� data and a decision is made about whether or not the alien is admissible into the US, or not, or is wanted for some crime or terrorism or some other nefarious reason. Notwithstanding the shortfalls of the fingerprint limitations and the persistent problem of the multiple terrorist watch lists still not being integrated, US VISIT is at least beginning to work. Some criminals, fugitives and prior immigration violators have already been captured by the system.

That�s half the US VISIT story. The other half is what�s called departure control. When an alien arrives and is admitted into the US on a temporary visa status, the DHS computer is supposed to track that alien�s stay in the US. If the alien is approved for a change of status or an extension of stay, so noted. When the alien departs the US, he/she is supposed to surrender the entry form, generally known as the I-94 document, upon departure from the US, and the departure is updated in the system and, essentially, case closed for that alien�s visit to the US. Unfortunately, none of that part of US VISIT is working. And DHS says it could be years before it is, though it does have a voluntary test project for departure control at Baltimore Washington International airport and the Miami seaport. No definitive word yet on how well the voluntary departure project is working.

Why is the departure control part of US VISIT so important? Consider that solid estimates from several studies show that as many as 40% of the illegal aliens in the US started their lives in America not by sneaking across the border but by making a �legal� entry with a temporary visa, and simply overstayed their time or otherwise violated the terms of their admission. That means that perhaps as many as four to five million illegal aliens originally entered the US in this manner. Every one of the 9-11 terrorist hijackers did�some several times.

Presumably, if the US VISIT departure control system worked, the computer would identify each temporary entrant alien who overstayed his or her authorized time. That information would make its way to the DHS interior immigration enforcement bureau, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Let�s assume the system is up and running. What then? We can assume a large number of such leads will likely be generated (remember the aforementioned 40% statistic).

ICE is currently an agency with no shortage of internal turmoil. Forged (some say it was more a shotgun marriage) from the remnants of the US Customs Service Office of Investigations, INS Investigations Division, INS Detention & Deportation Division, Federal Protective Service and later the Federal Air Marshals Service, the agency has a multitude of missions and, at best, a fragmented management structure. These are some of the very same ills that plagued the old INS. While ICE is struggling to cope with its many missions, maintaining an effective interior immigration law enforcement posture has been difficult for the agency.

When ICE was created, it was believed by various political leaders that Customs Special Agents and INS Special Agents would naturally meld together well since, after all, they all worked cases involving �the border.� Well, the border was really the only nexus between the two outfits and that meld was more fiction than reality, because the investigative missions of Customs and INS were (and are) very much different�Customs investigated cases with �things� and INS investigated cases with �people.� The investigative divisions of the two agencies should have remained separate. From the immigration enforcement perspective, there really should be a stand-alone interior immigration investigative agency either under DHS or under DOJ, from where INS came. Thus a big part of the problem with ICE.

So, would ICE be able to effectively investigate what would likely be thousands of new absconder leads generated from the US VISIT departure control system? ICE is currently fielding approximately 30 fugitive apprehension teams nationwide to locate and capture some 400,000 (that�s correct - 400,000) alien fugitives who are under final deportation orders. These are aliens who have been placed under deportation proceedings, had their days in court, had their appeals, lost all their legal proceedings and who failed to surrender for deportation�imagine that. So each of these fugitive teams, usually composed of four agents each, carries an average of more than 13,000 cases. And that�s old cases. Estimates of current deportation cases making their way through the system will realize as high as half resulting in the alien becoming a fugitive. ICE is struggling now trying to locate and apprehend huge numbers of known illegal aliens.

Does that mean the US VISIT departure control system should be scrapped? Absolutely not. For one thing, Congress has mandated its implementation. From at least a theoretical posture, the US Government should know what foreign nationals have entered, departed and failed to depart the United States. Being able to actually do anything with that information is another thing. Then again, the Government could do something with the information, even if rapidly and effectively locating and apprehending most of the violators is not one of them.

The US VISIT departure control violator information could be �triaged� initially through the various Government terrorist and criminal databases to determine if, since entry, the person has surfaced in any of those systems. An intelligence indicator database system, a dreaded �profile� system, could be constructed against which to query these violators. Before the civil libertarians and radical apologists have a fit, let�s remember the subjects being queried through such a system would already be people who would be prima facie immigration law violators. While those violations may not mean much to the aforementioned groups who would protest such �profiling,� I suspect the vast majority of Americans would support the Government�s washing of known illegal alien identities against limited security indicators to ferret out potential terror threats.

With such an analysis process, most of it automated, the limited number of threat leads could then be prioritized for investigative action by ICE and/or the FBI within the Joint Terrorism Task Forces. This is the way it could work. However, none of it works because the US VISIT departure control system is years away from implementation. America may now have better records of the entries through its ports, but we have no clue who is leaving and who is staying when they shouldn�t. From an immigration enforcement perspective, it�s really the same old stuff. Border security is better than before 9-11, but it still needs work.

And border security really is national security nowadays. Consider that in the past few days we have seen the Islamic Army in Iraq issue a statement (1/2) that it will bring their terrorist insurgency to the United States�stuff of Tom Clancy novels and Chuck Norris movies before 9-11; now potential lethal reality. There are verified reports of al-Qaeda connected Ansar al-Islam terrorists who are veteran fighters from Iraq being arrested after having been smuggled into Europe. According to Interpol, thousands of stolen and lost European passports remain unaccounted for, unreported internationally by their issuing countries due to lack of accurate bureaucratic oversight; passports that could be used to effect a �visa waiver� entry into the US. Reports continue to surface that MS-13, the deadly Latin American street gang founded in Los Angeles composed mostly of violent criminal aliens, many of whom have been deported and who have illegally reentered the US via alien smuggling organizations they control, has spread to a number of cities throughout the US, including Boston and Washington, DC and is reported to have made operational contacts with al-Qaeda for the purpose of smuggling terrorist operatives into America.

Strong and effective border security and immigration enforcement within the interior of the United States has become a critical component of the Nation�s counter-terrorism fight. The rule of law must prevail in concert with national security. But when dealing with foreign nationals entering and remaining in the United States, it should be remembered that simply is the issue in most immigration enforcement matters. The United States, as represented by the Congress and the Executive Branch, has a sovereign right to determine what foreign nationals may and may not come and remain here. There are often extreme voices trying to portray reasonable immigration enforcement actions as unjustified draconian acts conducted by jackbooted thugs. Usually those voices have their own agenda, and not the national security interests of America.

Here is a good "Government Executive" article on US VISIT.

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