Task force progresses on foreigner tracking system

A task force assigned to implement an electronic foreigner tracking system had its first meeting Wednesday, with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks adding a sense of urgency to its mission and lawmakers and citizens alike calling for stricter border security and immigration laws.

"The last thing I think we want to do is impede the flow of commerce ... It's the lifeblood of our economy," Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner James Ziglar said during the meeting. "I don't think there's any question in anyone's mind ... we are all dedicated to developing an entry-exit system that's effective and efficient ... as soon as reasonably possible."

The Data Management Improvement Act (DMIA) Task Force is comprised of 17 officials from the Justice, State, Commerce, Treasury and Transportation departments, Office of Homeland Security, National Association of Counties, National Governors Association, and nine private industry groups such as the Border Trade Alliance and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Created by a 2000 law to track traffic flow at the country's entry points while enhancing security and implementing data-collection and data-sharing systems, the group's activities will be supervised by the attorney general. The primary focus will be to develop an electronic entry-exit system to track the coming and going of visitors.

Congress also passed a visa waiver law in October 2000, which requires such a system to track those arriving by sea or air. The new anti-terrorism law also mandated the participation of the Homeland Security Office in the system's development. That measure also called for the task force to consider integrating biometric technology and developing tamper-resistance documents readable at ports of entry.

President Bush requested $13 million in the fiscal 2002 counter-terrorism supplemental budget and $16 million in the Commerce, Justice, State spending bill to fund these efforts.

Robert Mocny, director of the Entry Exit Project Office, said the biometrics requirement will be a costly challenge, and said another hurdle is finding a unique identifier to use when cross-referencing databases to track the arrival and departure of foreigners.

So far, Mocny's office has conducted pilot tests of the system at four airports and land border feasibility studies using computer simulation models and radio frequencies. The Entry Exit Office will issue a request for a proposal for a tracking system in May or June.

By Oct. 1, no visa waiver may be provided to aliens unless their information has been transmitted to the entry-exit system. The attorney general must implement an automated data-sharing system by that date as well, and State Department and INS officers must have access to photographs and eligibility for visas or admission.

The Homeland Security Office must submit a report to Congress by Oct. 26 on the information needed from U.S. agencies to effectively screen visa applicants. The attorney general has until Oct. 30 to submit a report on the effectiveness of the visa waiver provisions to track visitors, and the DMIA Task Force must make its recommendations on system implementation to Congress by Dec. 31.