U.S. border-control reform misses deadline

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Two pressure groups for tighter immigration policies said Thursday the administration had missed many border security reform deadlines set by Congress, blaming a lack of leadership from the president.

The Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA.com, non-profit, non-partisan organizations aimed at decreasing immigration to the United States, advocated for full implementation and funding of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002. The act called for tighter border security and set deadlines for implementing it.

"Effective immigration control is a prerequisite of victory" in the war on terrorism, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies said, because the terrorists' focus "is to attack us at home."

President Bush signed the legislation, also known as the Visa Tracking Law, in May 2002. At a White House ceremony on May 14, 2002, Bush said, "No nation can be totally secure or more secure unless we're well protected, and unless our borders are well screened."

The report says 22 reforms should have been carried out by the end of November 2003. Some of them, such a data-sharing system between the State Department and law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the development of biometric technology to check non-citizens' identities, and electronic submissions in advance of passenger manifests for all airliners and other commercial vessels, have already been implemented.

Stuart Patt, spokesman for the State Department Consular Affairs Bureau, said, "Our consular officers who are issuing visas now have a database that's much larger for name-checking people who are applying for visas." He cited increased data sharing with other agencies as the main reason the entries in the consular officers' database has increased threefold from the 7 million entries they had on Sept. 11, 2001.

Biometric technology will give agencies involved in border control and entry into the United States a more comprehensive set of data to verify identification of aliens. Lou Fintor, a State Department press officer, said, "There are currently four consular sections that are piloting electronic fingerprint collection as a step in the department's ambitious program to be compliant with" the visa tracking law.

But the report said more than half of the 22 deadlines for reform were missed, and nine of the initiatives have not been implemented at all yet.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said the lack of progress was due to a shortage of funds, which he blamed on Republicans.

"The president made a commitment to the American people when he signed the visa tracking bill into law," Byrd said in a statement. "He should live up to his commitment by investing the funds necessary to fully implement it."

Tom Gavin, a Byrd staffer, said that the senator "has tried on many occasions ... to increase funding for this tracking program. At each turn, the administration and the Republican congressional leadership has actively opposed ... and defeated those amendments."

However, Rosemary Jenks from NumbersUSA.com believed that a lack of political will, rather than a lack of funds, was the main impediment to meeting the deadlines.

"My personal view," Jenks said, "is that the biggest problems are coming from the White House."

The objectives of the report, Jenks said, were threefold: to praise the administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department for actions taken thus far; to point out missed deadlines; and to continue watching the administration's progress.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies said, "A lax system itself is a threat to the nation." Camarota cited reports that Iraqi-born smuggler George Tajirian pled guilty to allying with a Mexican immigration officer, Angel Molina Paramo, in order to smuggle what is thought to be 1,000 Middle Eastern illegal aliens through Mexico and into the United States.

Camarota also called for overtures to coordinate tighter measures on the border with Canada.

Campaigners also criticized the so-called "visa waiver" system, which allows individuals from 27 nations including Australia and Japan most European countries to enter the United States as tourists without a visa.

According to Temple University law professor Jan Ting, the system has been exploited by the likes of al-Qaida operatives Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national, and Richard Reid, a Briton. Both were involved in plots to attack the United States, and were eligible for entry to the United States under the visa waiver program.

Angela Kelley, deputy director at the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy organization, said that her organization is "usually on the opposite side of the aisle (from CIS) when it comes to immigration policy issues," but not in this case. She said that the nuts and bolts of intelligent border and port of entry security such as sufficient resources, up-to-date technology, and a trained staff, are "yet to be achieved."

Kelley said the visa tracking law "is a piece of legislation that we supported. ... I haven't studied the Center for Immigration Studies backgrounder in detail but I share with them (the view) that the government is falling behind in implementing this important bill."

The biggest fault identified by the campaigners is the failure to develop the integrated biometric-based database, Chimera. Such a system would allow the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department real-time access to immigration, intelligence, and law enforcement information on every alien, according to the report.

"It has to be about databases that are accurate that can be changed when they're inaccurate," Kelly said. "It has to be about policies that are applied evenhandedly. We have to be as vigilant about folks coming from the Middle East as we are about people coming from South America. These basic elements are only piecemeal at best."