New homeland office will oversee visa compliance

The Homeland Security Department has created a new office that will monitor compliance with the visa process and refer violations to border enforcement agents for investigation.

Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security at the Homeland Security Department, announced the creation of the office Monday during remarks in Washington at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. Hutchinson, who also outlined the revised entry-exit system for foreign visitors, said the newly created Office of Compliance will be part of the department's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The size of its staff and budget has yet to be determined.

"We have to evaluate how large the office will be, and how many employees we will need," Hutchinson told reporters after the event.

Employees will review foreign visitors' visa documents, working closely with immigration inspectors and Border Patrol agents in the field to apprehend violators, Hutchinson said. The office "will be supplemented by agents in the field and will need an intelligence and analytical component," he said.

Border Patrol agents, immigration inspectors and consular officers will have access to information on visa violators compiled by the new office. Law enforcement officials will have access to the information only under "strictly defined and limited purposes," Hutchinson said. He acknowledged the privacy concerns which come along with greater access to personal information, saying the department is "not here to play 'gotcha.' "

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, praised the creation of the compliance office. "Something like that is imperative because you can find all the information you want about visitors who haven't left the country, but someone has to follow up on those people and find out what's going on," he said. Krikorian said it was too soon to tell if the office would be successful or if it would simply end up adding another bureaucratic layer. "Conceptually, it is essential; whether they carry it out effectively remains to be seen," he said.

The creation of the new office comes at a time when the Homeland Security Department is reorganizing its border and transportation security directorate. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week unveiled a broad plan to combine the enforcement functions of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs Service and Federal Protective Service.

In April, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the creation of a new system to electronically check in and out foreign business travelers, tourists and students who come to the United States. The new U.S. VISIT system, which will replace the current National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, will use biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and eventually iris scans.

The system will collect information on the arrival and departure of most foreign visitors, including their nationality, classification as an immigrant or nonimmigrant, name, date of birth, country of residence and complete address while in the United States. Immigration inspectors will scan visitors' travel documents, which will include a biometric identifier, checking their information against a database to determine whether they should be detained or questioned.

The Homeland Security Department will work with industry to issue a request for proposals for the system "by no later than this fall," Hutchinson said.

Congress allocated $380 million for fiscal 2003 for the U.S. VISIT system, which will be implemented incrementally at air, land and seaports over the next two years. The system will be used in conjunction with the department's foreign student tracking system, known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.