WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The United States has ended its requirement men from 25 mostly Muslim countries register with the authorities every year they are in the country.
The program has yielded no terror leads, U.S. Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson announced Monday.
The Department for Homeland Security first required registration for male visitors over age 16 from five countries identified as state sponsors of terrorism -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria -- in November last year. Later the program was expanded to include male nationals of 19 other Muslim nations and North Korea. Registering visitors were interviewed, photographed and fingerprinted.
The 177,260 foreign men who have registered under the program were required to re-register 30 days later and again one year after their initial registration.
Hutchinson announced Monday that re-registration requirements have been lifted, although visitors from all 25 nations still will be required to register when they enter the United States and check out when they leave. While it is officially only suspended, the re-registration requirement is unlikely to be re-instated, Hutchinson said.
He added however that a future terrorist attack associated with a specific nation could prompt further nationality-based registrations.
Immigrant advocacy groups, which have long opposed the program, welcomed the move.
The re-registrations had only revealed immigration violators, not terrorists, Hutchinson said. "I cannot point to any national security gains that came from those (re-registration requirements)," Hutchinson said Monday. He said abandoning re-registration would enhance security by freeing resources for more individual, intelligence-based targeting.
Although re-registrations no longer will be regularly scheduled, the Homeland Security Department will still be permitted to require visitors to report for interviews and still will try to monitor potentially suspicious visitors, including verifying given local addresses.
Hutchinson said the move away from yearly registration is unrelated to media coverage, which has questioned the fairness and organization of the registration process. "This is something we have planned to do," he said, "It's been months in the process."
Registration raised red flags with many immigrants' rights and pro-privacy groups. Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told United Press International the registration program was "onerous, it did put a lot of people out, it led to a lot of unnecessary detentions." Ibish added that the program, "apparently hasn't actually thwarted or identified anyone who would do harm."
Ibish welcomed the changes to registration requirements, but called for further reforms. He said more than 13,000 foreign nationals still stand to be deported as a result of the registration program -- some for minor visa infractions, technicalities like delayed applications for visa status changes or for tardy responses to the registration program itself.
"In many cases these individuals had no status issue until they were confronted with the flawed and confusing registration system we are moving away from," Ibish said.
Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, told UPI the change in registration rules is a "small breath of fresh air," but added, "We don't want to give the community the impression that the slate has been swept clean. We think the entire (registration) program should be repealed."
Hutchinson said the Department of Homeland Security's ultimate goal is to shift immigrant monitoring to its US-VISIT program, which will collect identifying information including fingerprints and digital photos from incoming foreign travelers and make sure they do not overstay their visas.
He said US-VISIT, which will check visa applicants against terrorist watch lists, will allow his department to evaluate foreign visitors on an individual basis rather than simply registering all travelers from certain nations. "We will be able to target more effectively," he said.
US-VISIT is set to become active Jan. 5. Hutchinson said a pilot program in Atlanta is on track and he hopes to meet that deadline.
Ibish said the switch to US-VISIT "hopefully (will be) another step along the road leading away from a policy of discrimination against people on the basis of their national origin alone."
"The US-VISIT program certainly seems, on paper, like the right step," Kelley said, but added, "The jury is still out on implementation." She said other security programs have been hampered by inadequate funding for training and technology.
Since registrations began last September, 2,870 foreign nationals have been detained, according to DHS. Of those, 23 are still in custody, and 143 were criminals, the DHS said. The remainder had either been deported, left the country voluntarily, or were awaiting removal proceedings.
Hutchinson said none of the 143 criminals were suspected terrorists. "The leads very probably would have been out-of-compliance (with visa regulations) leads," he said. He added that the projected resources necessary to re-register current registrants -- 80 full-time employees plus some time from 400 other employees -- were not merited by the program's small returns.
Ibish said the registration program's lackluster performance reflects confusion within the Department of Homeland Security about whether it should be treated as an immigration enforcement effort or a counter-terrorism program. "Ultimately it can't be both, it has to have a primary function," he said. "You can't treat (all foreign visitors) as a pool of potential terrorists."
Ibish said registration was never introduced as a tool for immigration regulation and is not efficient in that capacity. "You couldn't argue that it's cost effective," he said.
