INS foreigner tracking system awaits budget go-ahead from Congress

The Immigration and Naturalization Service has made progress on its plan to document all foreigners entering and exiting the United States, but the agency is waiting for Congress to pass a fiscal 2003 budget before it can begin implementing the plan, according to an INS official.

The agency plans to spend $362 million this fiscal year on the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which must be implemented at all airports, seaports and land border crossings by the end of 2005. But Congress has yet to sign off on the agency's fiscal 2003 budget, holding INS to fiscal 2002 spending levels under the latest continuing resolution. "We want to get this thing moving," said Bob Mocny, director of the INS entry-exit program office. "With the lifting of the [continuing resolution], we're good to go."

It's still unclear exactly whom INS would track using the entry-exit system. An agency memorandum obtained by the Associated Press last month instructed immigration inspectors to begin registering men ages 16 to 45 from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen on Oct. 1. The memo also gave inspectors the authority to monitor anyone they thought worthwhile to track for national security reasons.

In September, the agency began documenting visitors from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Libya. Visitors must provide fingerprints, photographs and details about what they plan to do in the United States. Mocny said the National Institute of Standards and Technology is still evaluating various types of identifiers the entry-exit system could use, such as fingerprints and eye scans, but hasn't settled on one that would work best.

On Oct. 1, the INS began receiving passenger lists for departing flights of all major airlines, Mocny said. The agency had already received arrival records, often hours before planes touched down in the United States.

The INS' top priority on entry-exit this fiscal year is to integrate more than two dozen databases at the Justice and State departments that contain information about non-resident aliens, Mocny said. He's unsure how many of the systems can be linked together, but said the agency will build new ones to accomplish that goal if necessary. The INS will ask private contractors to propose how to integrate the systems, rather than devise a plan on its own.

The entry-exit system would be one of the largest undertakings attempted by the government in years. Scott Hastings, the INS' chief information officer, compared the scale of the project to building a new air traffic control system.

The INS is required to establish the system at all airports and seaports by Dec. 31, 2003. The 50 largest land points of entry would be included one year later, and by the end of 2005, the system must be operational at all other border crossings.

Mocny said he foresees no logistical problems putting the system in place at airports and seaports, largely because the INS is now receiving data about passengers who arrive in the country by air or sea. Land border crossings, though, present a much greater challenge. There are 162 official land border crossing points, most of them located on small highways between the United States and Canada. Attempting to track foreigners passing through these points could cause massive traffic congestion.

Still, Mocny said he was "absolutely" confident that INS would meet its deadlines for the entry-exit system. He added that the agency has studied other large-scale projects where databases and networks have been linked together, and will make reference to those projects in its request for proposals from industry. But he declined to name those projects specifically.