It may be half a loaf. It may cost too much to do. It may be too hard to implement. But putting all of that aside, the Department of Homeland Security is finalizing a proposal to collect fingerprints or eye scans from all foreign travelers at U.S. airports as they leave the country, reports the Washington Post.

The plan is expected to be part of President Obama's next budget, and should take effect within the next two years. Right now, DHS is planning to require the airlines to pay for the bulk of the program, which could reach at least $1 billion over 10 years.

However, there remains a gapping hole: The program would not be operating at land borders where 80 percent of non-citizens enter and leave the country.

"It will be up to Congress to put its money where its mandate is," a senior DHS official said. "The administration and Congress have to decide how they want to implement this in times of budget austerity."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein added in an email to the newspaper that she believes an exit system to be "critical to tracking the arrival and departure of foreign nationals--not just through a paper trail, but through fingerprints, photographs, and other fraud-proof biometric identifiers."

For more on tracking exiting foreigners:
- see this Washington Post article

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