Key chairmen tout technology's role in border security

Top lawmakers on Wednesday cited information sharing and the need for modern technology systems as keys to securing America's borders and reforming immigration policies to help prevent terrorist attacks.

Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., outlined their immigration policy plans at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce seminar on the topic. Sensenbrenner said one of their primary goals is to repair the "dysfunctional" process for admitting foreigners into the United States.

Terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks entered the country legally. Both lawmakers advocated more information sharing between the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other agencies as a way to prevent such infiltrations, and both also cited the need for technologies that could streamline and modernize the process for administering immigration services.

"The key is to use information technology to increase the productivity of the immigration service," Sensenbrenner said.

But unlike Kennedy, who has called for new policies that would monitor certain foreigners and place identification technologies at U.S. borders, Sensenbrenner said the INS must undergo major restructuring before immigration polices can be revised to meet new security demands.

"The Immigration and Naturalization Service ... is having grave difficulties meeting the demands that are presently placed upon it," he said. "It would be irresponsible of Congress to place new responsibilities upon the agency until it ... is capable of carrying out its current job."

Sensenbrenner and Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., are pushing a bill, H.R. 3231, that would reorganize immigration enforcement by creating a new "immigration affairs" bureau under the Justice Department. The measure also would split the current INS into two bureaus to separate service and enforcement functions.

Sensenbrenner gave no timeline for INS reform but said he would not move any legislation in his committee that "loads up more jobs on the INS." He was slated to meet with Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue.

Yet Kennedy argued that the INS' critical challenge is obtaining better information and using technology to manage its tasks. One of the best ways to "deal with terrorism is technology, and then how you train individuals ... to use that technology, and then to make sure that they have the best kinds of information and intelligence," he said.

Kennedy criticized the fact that terrorists often are omitted from the INS "watch list" because the CIA does not share its intelligence information. "You have people that are granting visas that don't have the benefit of what [information] the CIA has," he said.

He also touted biometric technology as a way to authenticate the identities of the foreigners entering the country; a policy prescription he included in his immigration reform measure, S. 1749. And he said law enforcement and immigration officials should be notified when foreign students studying at American colleges on temporary visas switch majors to study sensitive subjects like nuclear physics.