Homeland officials submit spending plan for immigrant tracking system

The Homeland Security Department submitted its 2004 spending plan for a new immigration tracking program to Congress on Tuesday.

The department gave Congress a detailed plan on how it will spend $330 million on the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT) program, Asa Hutchinson, DHS undersecretary for border and transportation security, told lawmakers during a hearing. The House and Senate homeland security appropriations subcommittees have 45 days to approve the spending plan, after reviewing it with the General Accounting Office.

Hutchinson said the biggest challenge would be meeting a congressional deadline to have US VISIT operational at the 50 busiest U.S. land ports of entry by Dec. 21, 2004.

The plan, however, does not call for hiring more customs inspectors, even though critics fear the new system will lead to a border bottleneck that impedes legitimate travel and commerce.

"We're not envisioning a system in place that requires additional resources," Hutchinson said. "As you improve technology, ultimately it should save human resources. At the air and sea ports, we're not adding people to accomplish US VISIT. It's a technological solution, and we're looking at it with the same viewpoint at our land borders."

Testifying before the House Homeland Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security, Hutchinson said the department also intends this year to analyze and deploy alternative approaches for verifying identities of people who exit the country at air and sea ports; install biometric readers at all air, sea and land ports; and continue building program management capabilities.

Homeland Security also plans to award a prime contract to Lockheed Martin, Accenture or Computer Sciences Corp. this spring to integrate databases for US VISIT.

DHS has requested that Congress release $25 million while the 2004 plan is under review to mitigate program and schedule delays. DHS is not making the spending plan public at this time.