Lawmakers seek biometric exit system for immigrants

The U.S. government is turning to information technology to modernize just about everything and deploy it for critical law enforcement efforts, including tracking immigrants leaving the United States.

Some members of Congress are proposing an automated biometric exist system to verify the departure of non citizens from the United States. That sounds like a very forward-thinking idea, but one that could help U.S. authorities keep track of a problem that, right now, cannot be tracked.

Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Immigration, Refugees and Border Security Subcommittee, wrote Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, urging her to study this kind of visitor tracking program for the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program (US-VISIT). "Any entry system has extremely limited value if it cannot be coupled with an exit system that tracks whether those who have entered the United States on temporary visas have exited the country as required by law," Schumer wrote.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the biometrics-based exit system should be part of US-VISIT, which already collects fingerprints from visitors from other countries when they arrive in the United States. Administrations have not shown a commitment to an exit system," said Smith, who sponsored the legislation in 1996 that required the development of an automated entry and exit system.

For more on the IT exit proposal:
- see this Federal Computer Week article

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