New Law Contains ID-Card Proposal
By Dave Boyer
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011031-576161.htm
Tucked quietly into the counterterrorism package that President Bush signed into law last week is a measure that could require foreigners to use identification cards to enter the United States.
A spokesman for Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, confirmed yesterday that his ID-card proposal was included in the legislation at the last minute before the House and Senate gave final approval to the overall bill.
The addition of the measure escaped the attention of the media and apparently many lawmakers as well. As proposed by Mr. Bond, the provision called for a foreigner's digitized fingerprint to be included on the identification card. But Bond spokesman Ernest Blazar said the law allows Attorney General John Ashcroft to decide on the best technology for fashioning the identification cards.
The new law, which gives federal agents broad new police powers to probe terrorism, does not require Mr. Ashcroft to implement the identification-card system. But it urges him to do so and appropriates whatever money the Justice Department would need to undertake the effort.
A bipartisan bill in the Senate would require the attorney general to take these steps. The proposal by Sens. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, and Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, would mandate the creation of a centralized, comprehensive database of visa holders and other noncitizens who enter the nation.
The Senate bill also would direct the Immigration and Naturalization Service to upgrade its own electronic data system to include biometric data such as fingerprint verification or iris recognition on all foreign nationals applying to enter the United States. It also would require countries wishing to participate in the visa-waiver program to provide tamper-resistant, machine-readable passports.
The counterterrorism law signed by Mr. Bush is designed to close visa loopholes exploited by terrorists in the September 11 attacks. Some terrorists were in the country on expired visas, and others entered the country on student visas but never showed up for school.
It requires thorough background checks for an immigrant to obtain an identification card. Student and travel visas will be tracked through an automated system to alert law-enforcement officials when visits have been overstayed.
Identification cards would be developed through "biometric" technology; the law also recommends production of "tamper-resistant" passports.
Mr. Bond's measure directs the secretary of state to review how consular officers issue visas to determine whether foreigners can go "consular shopping" to obtain one. The overall legislation gives the Justice Department the authority to conduct wiretaps on all phones used by a suspected terrorist and allows it to detain immigrants suspected of terrorist activities for up to seven days without filing charges.
As Congress attempts to crack down on loopholes in immigration, Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, renewed his call for a new Border Security Agency.
"It is clear that if we are going to secure our borders and protect our country, then we must end the Immigration and Naturalization Service as we know it and form a new agency that has the ability and the will to enforce the law," Mr. Tancredo said.
He said confusion arises from having BCIS, the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol all enforce the borders. Mr. Tancredo also said nearly 300,000 people who have been ordered deported by the USCIS "are currently not accounted for.
Bush Seeks Tighter Rules on Entry
Plan would track students, step up efforts to deport suspects
By Mike Allen and Eric Pianin
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8797-2001Oct29.html
President Bush, changing the direction of his immigration policy, said yesterday that he wants to tighten immigration laws and requirements for student visas to deter would-be terrorists from entering the country.
Bush said the government will step up efforts to deport foreign nationals suspected of supporting terrorism. Lawmakers working with the administration said measures being considered include using technology to track foreign students as they travel around the United States and to check immigrants' palm prints at airports and borders.
Sixteen of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes last month were visiting the United States legally, according to a Justice Department official. One of the other three hijackers had a student visa but was not in school.
Bush outlined his immigration goals, avoiding specifics, at the inaugural meeting of his Homeland Security Council, which he said will be responsible for protecting "the American people from any threat whatsoever."
Charging that some noncitizens have "taken advantage" of America's "generous" immigration rules, he named a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force to recommend specific changes in laws and procedures.
"We're going to tighten up the visa policy," Bush said. "That's not to say we're not going to let people come into our country; of course we are. But we're going to make sure that when somebody comes, we understand their intended purpose and that they fulfill the purpose."
Bush singled out student visas, saying that some recipients never attend classes, and perhaps never have that intention.
"We're going to start asking a lot of questions that heretofore have not been asked," Bush said. "We're generous with our universities, we're generous with our job opportunities. . . . Never did we realize then that people would take advantage of our generosity to the extent they have."
The review of immigration laws is the latest legislative response to the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings. On Friday, Bush signed a bill giving law enforcement agencies broad powers to pursue terrorists through search warrants and eavesdropping. He also has signed a bailout for the airline industry and recovery funds for the areas where the planes crashed, and he is seeking an economic stimulus package.
The new approach to immigration follows Bush's earlier effort to make it easier for citizens of Mexico to work in the United States legally. Bush has not abandoned that goal, but it is now on the back burner, administration officials said.
"By far, the vast majority of people who have come to America are really good, decent people -- people that we're proud to have here," Bush said. "There are some who are evil. And our job now is to find the evil ones and to bring them to justice."
According to a "fact sheet" distributed by the White House, "Improving legal immigration remains a priority for the Bush administration, but the Bush administration is committed to ensuring that our immigration policies and practices do not allow terrorists to enter or remain in the United States."
Marlene Johnson, executive director of the Association of International Educators, which promotes exchanges of students and scholars, said her group supports inquiries into the validity of student visa requests. But she added, "It is not good for the country to think that it solves the intelligence issues, which are clearly at the root of terrorism."
The White House said the task force would coordinate federal efforts to deny entry into the United States of people who are "associated with, suspected of being engaged in, or supporting terrorist activity" and to "locate, detain, prosecute, or deport any such aliens already present" in the country.
White House officials said they have bipartisan support for such measures. In particular, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) plan to introduce a bill this week to set up an automated system for tracking foreign students and give the State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service electronic access to FBI and CIA "lookout lists" of
potential criminals and terrorists.
The measure would call for sophisticated identification technology, such as instant fingerprinting and hand imaging, at all customs ports. "Congress stands ready to give the administration whatever additional authority may be needed to protect our borders," Kennedy said yesterday.
Congress last passed a series of anti-terrorist immigration laws in 1996, following the Oklahoma City bombing. As a result, the number of USCIS detainees skyrocketed. The laws required the detention of asylum seekers arriving in the United States without documents and broadened the definition of a felony, applying the change retroactively.
In June, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the government may not imprison immigrants indefinitely, that legal residents are entitled to have their cases reviewed by a court before facing deportation, and that new deportation rules could not be applied retroactively.
Lawmakers, troubled by injustices wrought by the 1996 laws, also introduced bills to overturn some of the harshest provisions. After Mexican President Vicente Fox's visit to Washington in early September, it seemed likely that policies would be adopted to help thousands of undocumented families regularize their status. But that was before Sept. 11. Immigration experts suggested that any effort to improve tracking of foreigners would require tightening identification requirements for visa seekers, probably by recording a visitor's fingerprints or other unique physical characteristics, known as biometrics.
"This is the way to go, and the technology is there now," said Don Hamilton, deputy director of the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. Biometric identification would tie visa applicants to a single identity and a single passport, he said.
For foreigners living in the United States, the ramifications could be even greater, especially if biometric identity checks were linked to employment. Hamilton predicted that this would be a more difficult change because immigration advocates and employers seeking cheap labor would object.
The State Department plans to announce today that it is reviewing six of the 29 countries whose citizens are allowed to visit the United States for short periods without obtaining visas. The countries under review -- Argentina, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Uruguay -- could be dropped from the list of "visa waiver" countries.
The countries have problems ranging from economic crises to passport fraud and theft. One official said the review had been scheduled before the Sept. 11 attacks but is now on an accelerated schedule and could result in recommendations by year's end.
USCIS Unable to Track down 250,000 Living in U.S. Illegally
By Jody A. Benjamin
The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Here's one to add to the growing list of revelations about immigration since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: an overtaxed, underfunded immigration investigations unit.
While the Immigration and Naturalization Service increased deportations of foreign-born criminals in recent years, it says it has been unable to deport 300,000 others it says should go -- 250,000 among them have vanished into American society.
And USCIS resources to track down this missing population -- who run the gamut from students who overstayed their visas to green card holders with felony records -- have not kept pace with the skyrocketing growth of undocumented immigrants living in the country, now about 8 million people nationwide.
Groups favoring tighter controls on immigration see BCIS' inability to find those it has ordered deported as a gaping loophole that must be slammed shut if the country is to regain control of its borders or to fight terrorism effectively.
Others say that while it is clear USCIS needs more resources to do its job, increased spending to track down visa overstays and ineligible asylum-seekers is not likely to cough up terrorists. Rather than cast a general dragnet, they argue a smarter approach would be to improve intelligence about specific threats. "It's like suggesting that we can reduce the murder rate by jailing everyone who commits a traffic violation," said Ben Johnson of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C. "We have to keep our eye on the ball here."
None of the 19 suspected hijackers from the Sept. 11 attack had been ordered deported by an immigration judge, according to the BCIS. But the agency thinks as many as six might have entered the country illegally and, had they been encountered by BCIS, could have been deported.
The bulk of the vanished population consists of those who overstayed a business, tourist or student visa and those who entered illegally by land or sea, said USCIS spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar.
"We cannot find them. That's why we can't remove them," Kraushaar said. "We're trying to track a population that is fundamentally trying to evade us."
Of the remaining 50,000 whom the USCIS has been unable to deport, about 20,000 are state prisoners that the USCIS plans to deport once their sentences have been served. Another 30,000 are in USCIS custody -- including illegal workers picked up during USCIS raids and asylum-seekers whose cases have been denied.
USCIS may be having trouble finding this population because the agency typically uses the mail to notify applicants they should leave, said Steven Camarota, a researcher with the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.
"We call them run letters," Camarota said. "Rather than call people in to tell them of their decision, USCIS gives them advance notice."
Advocates counter that many on the BCIS's missing list have no idea they have been ordered deported. Because the process can stretch out over months or even years, many applicants change addresses before hearing back from BCIS. Many have strong cases for appealing their deportation orders and are ultimately allowed to stay, advocates say.
"Everything we know about these terrorists [from Sept. 11] shows that they were not immigrants," Johnson said. "They were visitors intent on wrongdoing. What we're seeing now is opportunism by people who want to shut immigration down."
Either way, resources to track down this population are scarce, according to USCIS statistics.
There are 2, 000 investigators nationwide charged with tracking down foreigners who have been ordered deported -- about one agent for every 150 cases.
And with USCIS putting higher priorities on chasing alien smugglers and drug felons, the bulk of cases where people can't be found have not gotten a lot of attention.
Since Sept. 11, about half of all USCIS investigators have been assigned to track the terrorists.
Illegal Immigrant Total Is Raised
By D'Vera Cohn
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47633-2001Oct24.html
The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is at least 7 million and possibly as high as 8 million, according to new figures from the 2000 Census that offer a significantly larger count than previous estimates.
The new total shows that the number of undocumented immigrants has at least doubled since 1990, as millions of people arrived -- mainly from Mexico and Central America -- to fill jobs in the booming economy of the past decade. The previous estimate from census officials for the undocumented population was 6 million.
The new figure is another indication of the enormous demographic changes the country has seen in the past decade, fueled in large part by a record number of new immigrants. The precise number of undocumented arrivals has long been difficult to pin down and highly controversial.
The new information is likely to reinforce sentiment to seal the nation's borders more tightly against illegal immigrants or to take steps to prevent people who entered legally from overstaying their visas.
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, support had been building for an amnesty program for undocumented workers, but that is now seen as unlikely. Not only is there less political support for regularizing undocumented workers, there is also less employer demand because the nation's economy is deteriorating.
Census Bureau officials computed the new total in part to help determine why the nation's population as measured by the 2000 Census -- 281 million -- was 6 million larger than they had estimated it would be. To answer that question, they took an early look at data on the nation's foreign-born residents, which had not been scheduled for release until next year.
That data showed that 31 million U.S. residents were born abroad, and officials concluded that at least 7 million of them were undocumented. Overall, the foreign-born population grew by more than 11 million in the past decade. Undocumented immigrants accounted for about a third of that, according to the new data.
The figure of 7 million undocumented immigrants was contained in a recent Census Bureau study, but the study said the number could be low by as much as a million because immigrants are often missed in the door-to-door national head count.
The study's coauthor, Kevin Deardorff, said in an interview this week that, based on information he received after the report was written, he believes it is "a number closer to 7 million."
But another expert on immigration, Jeffrey S. Passel, an Urban Institute researcher who advised the Census Bureau as it compiled the new numbers, argued that even a figure of 8 million could be low. "They now are in the ballpark," he said.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service bumped up its own estimate earlier this year to a potential total of 7.5 million.
Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors limits on immigration, said the new census numbers marked "the first time anyone in the government has said it is that big." Given that the 1990 estimate of illegal immigrants was 3.5 million, Camarota said, "this number shows an inability to control the border."
Cecilia Muññoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, argued that the numbers showed the need to revive amnesty discussions, in part to get a handle on who is in the country illegally. "We are much more likely to advance the cause of security in this country if we have a better sense of who is coming into the United States," she said.
The recent economic slide has particularly hurt undocumented workers, who often are employed in the service jobs most likely to vanish in bad times. But Deborah Waller Meyers, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said that she would be "surprised if large numbers of undocumented people left the United States" now. Border security is tighter than it was a few years ago, she said, and many illegal immigrants realize that they may not be able to get back in.
Back on Front Burner: Push to Identify Foreigners Who Overstay Their Visas
By Chris Adams
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- What would it take for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to track every foreigner who enters the country? Members of Congress and advocates of stronger immigration controls are pushing the USCIS to come up with an answer.
In 1996, Congress told the agency to develop a complete entry-exit tracking system that would record every time a foreigner came into the U.S. and when he or she left. But Congress later backed off that demand. Now, as concern mounts about how to track down "sleeper" terrorist cells in the U.S., members of Congress and advocates of stricter immigration laws are again
pushing for such a system -- and questioning why economic and technological concerns were allowed to derail the project before.
The original idea, contained in a 1996 immigration law, was to force the USCIS to reconcile arrivals with departures and find the resulting "overstays" -- the people who come to the country legally but then never leave. Indeed, while the nation has historically focused on Mexicans slipping across the border, the USCIS says that as many as half of all illegal aliens are people who have overstayed their visas. They number more than two million, a figure growing by 125,000 a year.
At least three of the suspected Sept. 11 hijackers fit the bill. If an entry-exit system had been deployed on its original schedule, USCIS computers could have flagged at least two, given their known entry dates. "It makes you wonder what would have happened if we had done a better job tracking people," says Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas. Long before Sept. 11, Mr. Smith was arguing the case for tighter controls. "Without such a system, our government has no idea who is coming to the United States and whether they leave when they are supposed to," he said during 1998 hearings, adding that "it is particularly important that the United States protect its citizens from terrorism."
According to testimony Congress heard in 1998, other countries, including Israel, have tried to develop at least partial entry-exit systems. But those efforts are minuscule compared with the enormous challenge facing U.S. officials because of the number of visitors and variety of border crossings in this country.
Over the years, the USCIS has used or tested plenty of high technology to prevent fraud but still get people across the border swiftly: voice-recognition software, remote video inspection systems and a hand-geometry reader that quickly maps and verifies the size and shape of a subject's hand. But for now, those systems are used in only a smattering of border-crossing stations. Using them at every border crossing -- and linking them all into a central database -- would be a mammoth undertaking.
Advocates of an entry-exit system concede that much. But they say there is no question it can be done. And for proof, many of them point to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
"Wal-Mart tracks the purchase of every product," says Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank. "They know when it arrives on the shelves and when it leaves the store."
So if Wal-Mart can know on Tuesday how many boxes of Tide were sold at each of the company's 2,677 Wal-Mart stores and 486 Sam's Clubs on Monday, why couldn't an USCIS computer know when a Saudi or Pakistani tourist has overstayed his visa?
The challenges are many, starting with the sheer size of any resulting database. With 350 million noncitizen visits each year, an entry-exit database would grow by 700 million records annually. To prevent fraud, border officials might need to capture facial biometrics, for example, or fingerprints. That type of data would eat up even more computer space. And collecting it would certainly add to the waits at border-crossing stations.
"You probably would need to have more bridges, more roads, more lanes, whatever," along the borders with Mexico and Canada, says Mr. Smith, the Texas congressman.
Members of Congress have varying opinions about how comprehensive such a tracking system should be. Some want to capture every visit, including the tens of millions of day trips made by Canadians each year. Others want the program to record only those people who fly in on visas, but they want the USCIS to set up the program quickly.
It wouldn't be the first time Congress has changed its mind on the issue. Since 1996, Congress has twice pushed back implementation of the program.
For its part, the USCIS says it is working on fulfilling a more limited mandate Congress gave it last year, which would pick up most travelers but not Canadian citizens. Further, Congress has pushed the mandate back several years, saying the final pieces of such a system don't have to be put into place until the end of 2005.
Even there, though, things aren't moving as fast as expected. According to the BCIS, the new congressional mandate said that by Dec. 15, 2000, a task force would be established to wrestle with the issues of making entry-exit systems work. So far, the USCIS has given the task force a charter and forwarded a list of industries that should be represented to the attorney general. But as of yet there are no members.
Whatever the method of recording a visitor crossing the border -- whether it be a fingerprint, a magnetic-strip card or a face-recognition device -- information would need to be relayed from that crossing to the centralized tracking computer. Visitors would be tracked by name, visa number or another kind of personal identifier. The system could note when somebody who entered on a 90-day visa, for example, didn't exit within those 90 days. Then a message could be sent to USCIS investigators so they could try to find the person.
But any new plans for an entry-exit tracking system will have to contend with the objections that sidetracked the effort before. Critics have argued that more rigorous controls would lead to long lines at border crossings and economic disruption in places like Detroit, which look to visitors from Canada to spend money at baseball games, hockey matches, malls and casinos. There were also concerns that long lines of cars idling at busy border checkpoints would increase air pollution and that tired drivers would be at higher risk of accidents.
Technological concerns also played a role, with a Senate report saying it was perhaps "likely that such a system would be fraught with errors and be unreliable." The system might also be easy to foil: Counterfeit documents could be used or people could fill out exit cards for accomplices, much the way a friend might punch the time clock for a work colleague who slips out early. There were doubts, too, that the BCIS, which has demonstrated limited ability to track down the few overstayers it knows about now, could track down two million more names.
"Did the vast majority of these people who failed to depart on time do so for innocent reasons?" Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, cautioned Congress recently. "Did they stay an extra week at Disney World?"
Despite previous concerns, tech companies told Congress in 1998 that it was possible to build a system. While an official for Electronic Data Systems Corp. cautioned that "we are pushing the envelope," she added that "the bottom line is that we believe it is technically feasible," a position that the company says still stands today.
Tightening the Rules on Legal Immigrants
Visa requirements draw new scrutiny as authorities seek to keep terrorists out
By Dante Chinni
The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1022/p2s1-usgn.html
WASHINGTON -- Until Sept. 11, Mohamed Atta was just another face in the crowd as far as the United States government was concerned. He entered the country perfectly legally in July 2001 as a nonimmigrant visitor and was still legal the morning he boarded American Airlines flight 11. His role with Islamic extremist groups in Hamburg Germany was unknown.
What's more, his situation was not uncommon. Among the 19 hijackers who boarded flights that day, 13 had entered the country in normal fashion - filling out all the forms, answering all the questions for student and visitor visas. And that is what has many people here shaking their heads. For years, the Washington immigration debate has focused on the US's thousands of miles of unprotected borders and the quiet, undetected masses that slip into the country under cover of night or in the backs of trucks.
But the open, obvious way Mr. Atta and 12 others entered the US has exposed another huge hole in the nation's immigration system - on the legal side. Authorities are suddenly rethinking what changes in policy might be needed, starting with the most basic rules of granting visas.
More than 7 million people entered the country last year on visas, and some experts believe that if the government had been watching this group more closely, the Sept. 11 attacks might never have happened.
"Closer scrutiny would have made a difference, because dozens of people were involved," says Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies. "We can't get them all, but all you would need to do is get a few."
Tougher visa screening
A restructuring of the way visas are granted has had several false starts, but it now seems inevitable. Most foreign nationals need visas to enter the US even as tourists - and they can get them with relative ease. Applicants for student and visitor visas simply fill out forms, provide pictures, and sit through what are often brief interviews. Fingerprints are not taken, and security checks are cursory at best.
The problem, says Mr. Camarota, is that the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which sorts through the applications, is short-staffed, and the workers it does have are judged by the number of interviews they conduct, not the rigor of the questioning.
Added to that mix is the relative inexperience of the people in those posts. Many of those working in the "Consular Corps" are newly-assigned, low-level Foreign Service hires who are not necessarily well trained. "This is the first stop for many who enter the Foreign Service," says Mark Miller, a political science professor and immigration expert at the University of Delaware.
Even if an application is denied, the lack of coordination between consulates means rejected candidates can simply "consulate hop" - try another office using a different name.
And once the visa holders are in the US, there is no system to determine where they are - whether students with visas are actually attending class, or even if visitors have left by the time their visas have expired. Some estimate that more than half of the illegal immigrants in this country are people who overstayed their visas. Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers had overstayed theirs.
Weeding out potentially dangerous applicants and preventing people from slipping into the country under false names and identities will likely mean a much tougher approach and more money - if proposals on Capitol Hill are any indication.
Along with more thorough interviewing, particularly for residents of watch-listed nations, some are recommending fingerprinting and using biometrics systems that record people's physical characteristics. The aim it to make it tougher for people to disguise themselves and allow agencies to compare photos of applicants to those on watch lists.
"It would not only help catch people," Camarota says, "it would be a deterrent. If you're a terrorist, you're not likely interested in giving the US government fingerprints and a nice photo."
Though none of the 19 terrorists involved in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were on an FBI watch list, experts agree that such changes could make a difference. The point isn't to completely stop terrorists from entering the country, which is nearly impossible, but to keep them off balance.
The real test, however, may be whether Washington follows through on any of the proposed changes. In 1996, Congress passed a law that would have tracked when visa holders entered and left the country. It also would have created a database of people in the US on student visas.
Neither program was ever fully implemented due to political pressure. "The student measure in particular was resisted by universities, including the University of Delaware," Professor Miller says. "We have the capacity to make the changes we need. We just haven't had the political will."
Shifting politics
But that reticence may no longer be an issue. Lawmakers are showing renewed interest in changing the system. "People are talking about this in a much more academic, serious way than ever before," says a Senate staffer. "People aren't just dismissing ideas, saying, 'You can't do that, that's Big Brother.' "
The real question now, the staffer says, is "what holes should we fill first." A key area being examined is better sharing of information between the FBI, the State Department, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Yet even if the US tightens visa procedures, the nation would still be vulnerable to terrorists who enter the country illegally through Mexico or Canada. Tougher safeguards are coming there as well. The antiterrorism bill that passed the Senate last week included $609 million for new personnel along the Canadian border.