New program to facilitate foreign visitors from Jan. 5
By Vasantha Arora

Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

Washington : The Bush administration will launch a new security program that would help speed up the entry of legal foreign visitors into the United States, while keeping out potential security threats. The program will become effective from Jan. 5, 2004, according to Asa Hutchinson, under secretary for borders and transportation in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

He said here last week that the program, called US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology), is an example of the how the Bush administration seeks to apply the latest in high technology to increase security at U.S. ports of entry.

The new procedures will require most visitors traveling on visas to the U.S. to have two fingerprints scanned by an inkless device and a digital photograph taken by immigration officials upon entry at U.S. air and seaports, according to a press release.

The program, Hutchinson said, will minimize the possibility of document fraud and identify individuals who are on a terrorist watch list so as to prevent their entry into the U.S.

The program was originally approved by the U.S. Congress before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, and was designed to deal with the problem of visa overstays in the country. “But obviously it was accelerated after 9/11 and the security aspects of it have been dramatically increased,” said Hutchinson.

Hutchinson noted that US-VISIT will initially be applied at U.S. airports and seaports, and will later be expanded to other ports of entry.

The program, he said, will be directed at visitors from all parts of the world who wish to come to the U.S. Hutchinson emphasized that the U.S. wants to continue to be a “welcoming nation” and the new program “will help us to focus on the ‘at-risk traveler’ and to facilitate [the entry of] people who are no risk or frequently visit the United States.”

He added that “this is not a matter of inconvenience because as we develop the system, we will be able to quickly identify someone who has a good record of visiting the United States, who has honored our visa laws, and we will expedite their entry” into the country.

Hutchinson defined the at-risk traveler as anyone with a connection with terrorism, who has a history of overstaying his or her visas, or who has not followed U.S. legal requirements for entering or staying in the country.