WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- Angry airline executives are criticizing federal rules proposed Tuesday that would make them collect fingerprints from foreigners leaving the United States by air as part of the Department of Homeland Security's biometric border system, U.S.-VISIT.
They say the industry, already reeling from higher fuel prices and safety concerns, and beset by bankruptcies and mergers, cannot shoulder the $2 billion-plus cost of the plans and should not be doing the work of immigration and law enforcement officials.
"Given the fragile financial state of the industry, it is ludicrous to outsource this job -- which is properly a government function," said Steve Lott, North American communications director for the International Air Transport Association, which represents the global airline industry.
"You are turning airline employees into law enforcement and immigration officials," Lott told United Press International. "This is like the IRS outsourcing tax collection to accountants. … It makes no sense."
Government estimates of the cost over 10 years, included as part of the proposal, range from $2.6 billion to $6.4 billion, depending on how the rules are implemented and how the cost is counted.
The Air Transport Association, which represents U.S. carriers, said in a statement that the actual costs could be even higher.
"The industry just can't afford it," said Lott. "These costs will have to be passed on to the consumer."
He said the industry would be vigorously opposing the widely anticipated new plan, rolled out Tuesday by DHS officials in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making, the publication of which kicks off a 60-day public comment period.
He said the association would be filing comments and lobbying its supporters in Congress.
The proposed rule envisages the new procedures being in place by January 2009, the first step in implementing the so-called exit portion of U.S.-VISIT, a Homeland Security system that biometrically verifies the identity of most foreign visitors arriving in the United States through an inkless fingerprint scan and a digital photograph.
The exit portion, a congressionally mandated extension to the system, will enable the department to confirm that a visitor has left -- and identify those who might be illegally overstaying.
"We've built an effective entry system, and combined with the proposed exit system, we'll have made a quantum leap in America's border security," Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said Tuesday. He added that he "look(ed) forward to an ongoing dialogue on solutions" with the industry.
Congress mandated the exit portion as part of its original plan for the system and last year made its implementation a precondition for any expansion after June 2009 of the Visa Waiver Program -- under which citizens of select countries can visit the United States for up to 90 days without a visa.
Without the exit portion to give a clear idea of how many visa-waiver visitors were leaving at the end of their 90 days, lawmakers reasoned, the program's integrity could not be guaranteed.
But DHS has wrestled for years with the practicalities of collecting fingerprints from departing passengers. Last May it abandoned pilot projects at several airports that used a standalone process for taking the finger scans at small, ATM-like kiosks in airport departure lounges. Now officials say biometric checks will have to be integrated into the existing check-in process for passengers leaving the country.
But that alarms airlines that have been working for several years to replace traditional counter check-in with an increasingly virtual process.
Lott said the "hassle factor" -- with long lines at check-in counters as passengers struggle with unfamiliar new procedures and technology -- would be a major problem. "It will create long lines at a time when the industry is increasingly trying to offer passengers alternatives to the traditional check-in counter" by allowing passengers to check in online, using mobile phones or PDAs and at airport kiosks, he said.
Officials say airlines already collect -- and provide to DHS -- biographical information about departing passengers like name, nationality and passport number.
But Lott said that was information already collected by the airlines for their own purposes and that transmitting the small text file involved was a very different matter from sending fingerprint images.
"A big part of the cost will be the huge overhaul of airlines' IT infrastructure" required, he said.
But some other observers say the costs, though large, are manageable, and outweighed by the improvements in security and the integrity of the nation's immigration system.
"It's expensive, but not as expensive as it looks at first blush," former DHS official turned lobbyist Stewart Verdery told UPI. "When you spread it out over the time period and divide it between the millions of passengers, the marginal cost per transaction is not that large."
Verdery said the DHS proposal may be the least bad way of getting an exit system in place.
"There is a series of very mediocre options" for implementing the exit portion of U.S.-VISIT, he said, pointing out that alternatives, like collecting prints at the TSA passenger screening check-points, would require just as much new infrastructure and create the same risk of long lines. "You are trying to retrofit a system that doesn't have an (immigration) exit check. There aren't any really good alternatives."
Despite wide concern among supporters of the airline industry on Capitol Hill, Verdery predicted lawmakers would be unlikely to second-guess the department.
"The burden of proof will be on those who want to derail the DHS proposal," he said.
