Foreigners leaving the U.S. must undergo mandatory fingerprinting

Foreigners leaving the country through any of the nation’s 30 busiest airports would undergo mandatory fingerprinting under an amendment senators added Monday to a sweeping immigration bill.

Lawmakers called it a step toward a more expansive biometric system that would use identifiers such as fingerprints to keep track of immigrants and visitors exiting the U.S. Currently no such system is in place, something viewed as a security weakness, particularly because some 40 percent of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally overstayed their visas and there’s no good system for tracking them.

“This is an agreement that we need to build toward a biometric visa exit system,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who offered the amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who was absent Monday. “Implementing this biometric exit system is long overdue.”

A full-fledged biometric entry-exit system is favored by many senators but was deemed too expensive and unworkable to include in the bill. Current law already requires such a system to be in place, but the Department of Homeland Security has not implemented it. Instead the bill seeks electronic scanning of photo IDs.

Under Hatch’s amendment, the nation’s 10 busiest airports would have to establish a fingerprinting system within two years after enactment of the immigration bill. Within six years it would have to be in place at the 30 busiest airports.

The amendment passed 13 to 5.

“The entire system, as current law requires, should be implemented,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who voted no. “It’s a retreat from current law, a weakening of current law.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/senators-require-fingerprinting-30-airports-article-1.1349192