Feds Want to Photograph, Fingerprint Foreign Visitors

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

AP via Yahoo - June 5, 2002

"We don't need false solutions to real problems and 
that is what this is" 

Feds Want to Fingerprint Foreigners 

by Suzanne Gamboa

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration wants to photograph,
fingerprint and get detailed information from thousands more foreign
visitors to the United States, according to law enforcement
officials.

Officials who described the plan Tuesday on condition of not being
identified by name said the Justice Department would expand the reach
of an already existing law to keep better track of tourists, business
travelers, students and temporary workers considered possible
security threats.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the plan, details
of which are expected to be announced this week.

Attorney General John Ashcroft would not respond to a reporter's
questions about the plan as he made his way to a meeting with House
Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Sensenbrenner has been a leading critic of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, an agency within the Justice Department that
since Sept. 11 has acknowledged gaps in tracking foreigners in the
country.

Sensenbrenner's aides declined to comment on whether the proposal was
discussed during the meeting with Ashcroft.

Ashcroft has undertaken a number of initiatives since the Sept. 11
attacks to better track foreign visitors.

Foreigners seeking to live in the United States are photographed and
fingerprinted and must provide detailed background information to the
government. But the same is not required of most visitors.

Ashcroft is seeking to expand a 1998 rule that requires visitors from
Libya, Iraq, Sudan and Iran to register with the government and be
fingerprinted and photographed.

The rule could be applied to people from as many as 35 countries
under the proposal, a law enforcement source said, speaking on
condition of anonymity. However, people from any country could be
required to register if something in their background brings them to
the attention of U.S. officials, the official said.

Judy Golub of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the
proposal could be the first step toward requiring all visitors - and
perhaps all citizens - to carry government identification cards.

"We don't need false solutions to real problems and this is what this
is," she said.

[Associated Press Writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.]

 
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