Fingerprinting aliens entering the U.S.

Great Debates
1

How could anybody be opposed to that? Somebody is.

From the Washington Post article:

The opposition appears to center around this affecting only immigrants from particular countries. I would assume that has to do with an identified threat arising from particular nations, peoples and religious sects. (Though I acknowledge that the vast majority of Muslims and Arabs coming to America are coming for the same legitimate purposes as any other immigant.)

That the policy to start only involves some nations is likely also a result of how unwieldy and expensive such a program would be to fingerprint, photograph and do records checks on every immigrant.

Not doing anything at all, because you can’t do it across-the-board, doesn’t seem a solution.

The USA does a horrible job screening immigrants for such things as criminal history and terrorism ties, ensuring that they are doing what they said they would do while in the country, and are not overstaying their visas.

A bipartisan Congress and the President have already spoken on this issue. They want the broken system fixed. September 11 shows why it’s important.

People who shouldn’t be allowed to enter the country are entering. People who overstay their visas or don’t do what they said they were going to do upon entering get away with it with regularity.

I’m a huge believer in keeping America open to immigrants from all over the world. The melting pot is what made the country great. And even those who want to only visit from other countries should be welcomed.

But that doesn’t mean the U.S. shouldn’t be able to protect its security through common-sense background checks and policies that enforce visa requirements.

I absolutely recognize that racially profiling Arabs and Muslims isn’t going to get the job done on keeping terrorism out of America. Remember “Taliban” John Walker? One day the terrorists will have white skin and blue eyes - bet on it.

That’s why I’d like to see the programs being initiated next month extended as soon as possible. It should be considered a national priority, and funded as such.

It’s still no guarantee. But it’s a lot better than a system that allows this.

2

Though European, I’m an alien, serial tourist, former resident, and son of two US citizens, so I’ll reserve my right to comment. :wink:

I’m not entirely against this proposal. A few questions though:

What would fingerprinting actually achieve? It would surely have to be linked back to the criminal records of the country of origin for it to have any effect.

Would you propose to destroy the records if/when the immigrant achieves citizenship? I am not a constitutional expert, but from what I understand, the new citizen should not have unequal status to US-born citizens.

How would American citizens react to the reverse being done to them when visiting other countries? Could make a tour of the Caribbean or Europe kind of messy.

Finally, this method wouldn’t have caught John Walker, as he wasn’t an alien. So, racial profiling or not, fingerprinting or not, he’d have still been allowed in.

3

Also a (former) boat-person, I am not entirely oppossed to the idea of actually screening immigrants (hell, they let me in), and even visitors from certain nations.

But I notice that Saudi Arabia, which bred 15 of the 19 9-11 terrorists, is not on the list. Which then leads me to believe that this is going to be one big inconvenience for honest immigrants and visitors, and yet another laughable ‘security’ measure for terrorists to circumvent.

4

Milossarian, you seem to not realize visitors and immigrants are two very different things. The article talks about fingerprinting visitors.

A fingerprint requirement for all visitors, as you propose, would have one direct and immediate effect: the collapse of the tourism industry. Do you realize to what extent this is a source of income for the US?

The government proposed some months ago some restrictions on tourist visas but they have not been implemented due to opposition from the tourist sector. That is nothing compared to fingerprinting and photographing people. Do you really think tourists would stand for that?

5

jjimm:

**
From what I understand, at a minimum, the U.S. would know if the person trying to enter the country had a criminal record (and of what nature), and if they were on any terrorist watch-lists.

That in and of itself is infinitely ahead of the system as it exists now.

**
It will be interesting to see that. The story makes no mention of it. When a person becomes a U.S. citizen, it becomes a whole different ballgame. And as the final link in my OP notes, a significant number of terrorism activities perpetrated in the U.S. were done so by foreigners who had gained citizenship here.

At some point in time, being able to pre-emptively stop a wannabe criminal/terrorist from committing a crime/act of terror becomes an impossibility. There isn’t much law enforcement can do until an attack is at least imminent; at worst occurs.

It’s all-new territory after Sept. 11. There’s a real struggle at the edges of where being pre-emptive clashes with civil rights. That’s why I don’t have a lot of condemnation for those holding Ashcroft’s feet to the fire on the issue. It’s an important one that needs to remain closely scrutinized and counter-balanced.

**
Does it? Depending on how the use of fingerprints is spelled out in the law, I wouldn’t particularly care. If the country faced a legitimate threat from Americans committing acts of terrorism within its borders; and a group of terrorists comprised of Americans was releasing videotapes to the media about how they were going to bring the Carribbean to its knees and continue to murder as many civilians at a time as they could, yeah, I’d understand the Carribbean government wanting some information on me as I attempted to enter their borders.

**
Agreed. This measure doesn’t protect America from terrorism. It better protects it.

Brutus:

**
I noticed the same thing. And I think it’s a political decision that shouldn’t have been made.

Perhaps their thinking is that possible Saudi terrorists could face the fingerprinting through criteria 2 and 3 noted in the WP article.

sailor:

**
I understand that. A visitor would be any foreigner entering the U.S. for a reason other than to take up residence there. A great many immigrants first enter the U.S. through other types of visas, and then attempt to change their status. So I’m not sure how important the distinction is. As when a visitor becomes a U.S. citizen, any INS tracking of them would be stopped.

**
And why is that?

Given that such a thing would probably never occur until after Big Terrorism Attack Number 2 or 3 on U.S. soil, anyone who wouldn’t understand the reasonableness of the request on the part of the American government at that point, I just wouldn’t know what to say to them. Tourists probably wouldn’t want to come here at that point anyway; and people who needed to come here for some business purpose would likely do so anyway.

AFAIK, the program is designed to prevent those with serious criminal offenses or known ties to terrorism from entering the United States. The information could also be used to help track someone who has overstayed or misused their visa. I would not support any use of the fingerprints or other information that went beyond that.

6

Milo - you say fingerprinting will identify criminals from these evil empire (tho please note the post re: Saudi Arabia) - where/how do these get identified? from said evil empire?

See, I recall some of the prior lessons about terroristic activity - the Lockerbie Scotland flight, the bomb was brought on board by the non Arabian girlfriend of the bomber. I suspect that it would be fairly simple for a terrorist to obtain false ID’s /passports from another (non listed) state, and enter w/o problem. So what we’ll end up doing is making it less attractive for legitimate visitors w/o seriously deterring those we wish to deny access.

The bottom line, my friend, is that the US is an extremely large country and if some one really really wants to enter illegally, there’s thousands of miles of unpatroled boarders in which to do so.

No, I’d rather not give the terrorists incentive to change their names, etc. nor would I like to spend those kinds of dollars on what I fear would be an ineffectual, and costly (see objections re: tourists) program.

I suspect that more $$ could be utilized for our intelligence system and actually attempt to correlate the data that we obtain (seemed to me from the info post 9/11, we had quite a few solid things to track, but failed to, in the words of one “connect the dots” ). That would be, IMHO, a better use of the $$, w/o the aforementioned risks.

7

wring, I urge you to read the report I linked as the last word in my OP. Yes, terrorists find and use various ways to get into America. But it’s a plain fact that the ways some of the 9/11 and other terrorists have entered this country in the past, or abused or overstayed their visas, would be less likely if not impossible under the reforms that are being implemented.

One wouldn’t say, “There’s no sense in putting locks on the bank’s doors, or locking its vault, because bank-robbers can always find another way to get in.”

**
I said nothing about any evil empire. I’m not interested in labeling countries; I’m interested in thwarting terrorists - especially the ones we know, can name, can point out. Numerous countries have criminal records and intelligence information we can access. There probably are some where that’s more difficult. I’d imagine that list includes the countries listed in Criterion A.

**
Duly noted in my OP. This doesn’t solve the problem of terrorists and their access to America; it helps solve it.

**
Pointing up precisely the need for fingerprinting and digital facial images. Then a potential terrorist can call himself whatever he’d like. But if he or she is on a watch list or has a criminal record of some type in another country, up it pops.

**
It’s a legitimate concern; no doubt about it.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m extremely concerned about what happens in the U.S. after Attack #2, if there is one, and if it is significantly more deadly than Sept. 11.

Important issues that are currently counter-balancing our need for national security in the face of an imminent threat (civil liberties; remaining an open, free-moving, tourism-friendly nation) will quickly and significantly topple over to the national security, protection-of-citizens side.

When it comes down to the absolute bottom line, is America’s prime directive to survive? Or the freedoms upon which the nation was founded?

Perhaps it’s over-the-top to take it to that extreme. But give the terrrorists time, and they could force our hand to choices that dire (in my worst nightmares, anyway).

8

Here’s an article that touches on some issues related to this thread as well. I don’t have a clue about this website’s ideological position. I’ve never heard of it: Link.

9

One of the things that stands out from this post and the articles is that if the INS was actually working as it should be (let alone adding new laws), a lot of the terrorists would have been barred entry.

10

Why not? Assuming the procedure wasn’t too inconvenient I would have no problem doing this in order to visit a foreign country, and even if it were inconvenient all I would do would be gripe about it. I already have to apply for visas and go through customs, what’s the big deal? I seriously doubt a signifcant number of people are going to change their vacation plans because of a couple procedures that shouldn’t be more than a mild inconvenience for anyone who- call it a cliche if you must, but I think it’s true- isn’t here to commit crimes.

11

What, like Timothy McVeigh?

12

And all the Irish ones?

13

Of course it would also only be effective if the aliens actually had fingers. What if they had tentacles, or were just made of slime?

14

and the British ones?
:wink:

15

Ok what about this.

Any serious terrorist would just get a fake passport from a country that isn’t on the list.

Like proposals to require citizens to carry ID. IMO This kind of thing only hassles innocent people. The real people it’s trying to catch will just get around it my using fake credentials. Yes?

16

It’s reassuring to know that terrorists use their own passports when carrying out their activities, perhaps in the future we should hold them to their boy scouts honour to continue to do that.

I’m reminded of the policy of those recruiting suicide bombers:: One of the criteria they look to satisfy is that the people could pass as Israeli.

The authorities already carry out ‘racial profiling’ at airports, they have CCTV (presumably no longer wiped), they have ID and they can search people. If anything this moves suggests (to me) the Bush Administration has less faith than ever in its Intelligence community.

I don’t yet understand what advantages this brings apropos terrorism – it makes Bush appear to be doing more in the nations defence (as well as having, presumably, other, as yet, unknown ‘advantages’) but I don’t see the substantive value.

BTW, I used to know someone quite well whose father was English and mother Lebanese – he carried dual passports. I can guess which one he’ll use on holidays to the US, if he goes at all.

17

Space Vampire, whatever you may think, the fact is the hotels, airlines and rest of the tourist industry think the measures the government was going to implement would have a devastating effect on their business and they pressured ffor the measures not to be implemented and they haven’t. If you disagree you can take it up with them. I am just telling you what has happened. I also trust they know their business and they probably have valid reasons.

The “mild inconvenience” argument may seem logical to you, but that’s not the way the real world works. Tell people that due to security reasons, they need to be IDd, photographed and fingerprinted before they enter Disneyworld and it only takes a minute or two. Many people will object to it on principle and not go, many other will agree it is a necessary measure but not like to be subject to it and so, not go, and a few will go anyway. The fact is Dsinay would lose a lot of money. Whether the measure is needed or not in no way has any relevance to whether people will submit to it or not.

18

Ah, but I’m afraid that’s not how it works. The vast majority of countries’ immigration regulations are reciprocated quid pro quo by how the visited country treats its visitors. Therefore if the US demanded fingerprints/photos/DNA evidence/whatever of many different countries, then those many different countries would demand the same of US visitors. A 10-day grand tour of Europe encompassing 10 countries could therefore involve 10 different sets of fingerprints/whatnot being taken. Having seen the state of apoplexy certain tourists have got into in Dublin and Heathrow airports about the stricter post-911 security arrangements there in the past few months, I can’t see this going down at all well.

19

jjimm asked

It’s been a while since I became a naturalized US citizen, but I’m quite sure that either my right index finger print was on my alien registration card or it was taken while I was being naturalized. I don’t think fingerprinting aliens on arrival would remove this step – INS might take another fingerprint to compare it with the one on file – but it wouldn’t require destroying records. As to unequal status, I’m afraid it’s already a fact. While this is a small issue and not all that likely, when an employer is audited by the INS (and one of mine was), all most US citizens have to do is produce a birth certificate. Since my birth certificate says “England” on it, I also have to produce a Certificate of Naturalization.

Going back to the OP, I’m a little sensitive about issues regarding aliens and immigration, but I would have no problem with this if applied to people from all countries, or even any country requiring a formal visa. Selecting certain specific countries or people meeting certain unspecified criteria seems to be leaving too much room for error, unfairness, and general loopholes. Omitting Saudi Arabia from the list, given what I know of some of their policies and the nationalities of the hijackers last Septembers sounds unwise at best.

20

jjimm asked

It’s been a while since I became a naturalized US citizen, but I’m quite sure that either my right index finger print was on my alien registration card or it was taken while I was being naturalized. I don’t think fingerprinting aliens on arrival would remove this step – INS might take another fingerprint to compare it with the one on file – but it wouldn’t require destroying records. As to unequal status, I’m afraid it’s already a fact. While this is a small issue and not all that likely, when an employer is audited by the INS (and one of mine was), all most US citizens have to do is produce a birth certificate. Since my birth certificate says “England” on it, I also have to produce a Certificate of Naturalization.

Going back to the OP, I’m a little sensitive about issues regarding aliens and immigration, but I would have no problem with this if applied to people from all countries, or even any country requiring a formal visa. Selecting certain specific countries or people meeting certain unspecified criteria seems to be leaving too much room for error, unfairness, and general loopholes. Omitting Saudi Arabia from the list, given what I know of some of their policies and the nationalities of the hijackers last Septembers sounds unwise at best.