Homeland Security Department components will integrate within the next 6 to 12 months databases containing information on foreigners who have potentially overstayed their visas, DHS officials told a Sept. 13 House panel.

The integration "will essentially create a dashboard available to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] on a day to day basis" that takes away the need for agents to query multiple systems, said John Cohen, DHS principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism. Cohen testified before the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border and maritime security.

The database system does not set up a biometric exit functionality analogous to the system already in place to digitally collect fingerprints from foreigners arriving into the United States, but it could help form the basis for one, Cohen said.

DHS officials have said that setting up a US-VISIT system to collect fingerprints of departing foreigners would be too expensive. The most recent estimate pegs the cost of a fingerprint departure system rollout at $3.5 billion over a decade, a DHS official told a Senate committee in July.

Current exit data depends in great measure on foreigners voluntarily submitting departure forms to Customs and Border Protection--which at some U.S. ports of entry, requires travelers to park their cars, enter a federal facility and present their forms to a CBP officer.

Unsurprisingly, data quality about visa overstays in DHS databases has been an ongoing issue. When DHS recently examined 1.6 million records of potential visa overstays, departmental officials determined that 843,000 pertained to individuals no longer inside the United States.

Of the remaining 757,000 records, Cohen said they have all been checked against travel history databases and with the National Counterterrorism Center, leading ICE to focus on pursuing 2,000 high-risk individuals. Obama administration policy has generally been to focus deportation efforts on  illegal aliens who are also criminals.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimonies and webcast available)

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