Translation by American Patrol

Feinstein proposes to control the immigrant

Looks for a biometric card for non-citizens; she is criticized because that would lead to a national identity document

Maribel Hastings

Reporter for La Opinión
Oct/26/01

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, proposed yesterday a legislation to, among other things, create biometric visas and force all non citizen residents, including current non-immigrant visa and green card holders, to provide the State Department fingerprints, and if needed, any other kind of biometric information when applying for a visa.

Some crítics immediately said that the proposal goes in the direction of instituting a national identity document, although its authors, Feinstein y [and] her cosponsor, Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican Senator, deny it.

This measure imposes restrictions to foreign students, and prohibits the issuance of visas to students from seven nations which, according the State Department, sponsor terrorism. They are Iran, Irak, Sudan, Libia, Siria, Cuba y North Korea. Feinstein remembers that Irak's nuclear program director studied in the United States.

The new proposal is added to other initiatives before the House of Representatives that is looking for drastic changes in immigration laws and to create electronic systems to control the entrance and transit of immigrants and tourists.

With this in mind, the plan envisions the creation of a centralized data bank with information about foreigners that enter the United States and will serve as a source of information in all the points of entrance into the country. The Interior Security Office director will have to assemble a data bank with information provided by several departments y federal organizations.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will have to enter into that data bank information of foreigners who have violated the conditions of their visa.

About the biometric documents, Kyl as well as Senator Feinstein, insisted that this is not a national identification card but special visas which foreigners must present when entering and exiting the country. That information will be read by a special equipment connected to the proposed central data bank.

The biometric information refers, for example, to fingerprints, retine or facial data, which are unique features of an individual, and can be read by specialized machines.

Impact of 9/11

"September 11, showed clear deficiencies our our visa system", stated the senator. From the 19 air hijackers 13 entered the country with valid visas. From the 13, three remained here despite their visas had expired, two of them are suspected to have entered with student visas and immigration authorities have no information about the other six hijackers.

According to the senator, even the ones who had valid documents showed troubling conduct which was not picked up by the authorities.

Feinstein remembered that prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, many of these measures did not have public support, but after the attack, she said, "people told the government, protect us".

Kyl, on the other hand, assured that there is nothing bad in the proposal and that "it does not violate civil liberties".

Every day that passes without this system, said Kyl, "is a day or more vulnerability to terrorism."

The Arizona senator said that, in the context of the guest worker program, would have to consider fraud proof documents and the biometric visas are an option.

John Ashcroft, the Attorney General himself, warned yesterday to suspected terrorists authorities will apply all the available laws and use any immigration violation to imprison them and that they will intercept all their communications.

"The terrorists who are among us are warned," said Ashcroft to the Conference of Mayors.

Feinstein said that she suspects that some groups would find certain clauses problematic, but the environment has changed and if before under no instance would have determined the need to implement measures as the ones proposed, the September 11 is what did it.

"This is a system whose time has come," said the senator.

The problems

Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of Consejo Nacional de la Raza (NCLR), considers problematic some of the clauses.

For example, she said that despite the initiative does not directly request a national identification card, "indirectly it does," or it is taking us in that direction.

"Those two senators wanted to do the same thing in the debate which resulted in the immigration reform of 1996 and this [the terrorist attacks] have given them the opportunity to insist on going down this road", declared Munõz.

"Everyone agrees that we have to impede terrorists the opportunity to enter the United States with visas. The question that has to be made is if what they propose to do will accomplish that purpose. We could revise documents every 15 minutes, but if the information we are revising does not tell us who is involved in terrorism, to revise documents every 15 minutes is not going to help us", she said.

According to Muñoz, the biometric documents pose two problems. "The first is the possibility that they might be used in a discriminatory manner, because it can happen that not only they will be requested to come in or out of the country, but any moment", said Muñoz.

" We know that in these moments many people who has a Latino o foreign face suffers discrimination and we could be creating tools to discriminate them more", she added.

The second problem, she said, consists in that information from those documents would go to data banks that maybe do not contain exact data and could be wrongly used.

The alternative

Pro-immigrants favor Massachusetts democratic senator, Edward Kennedy, president of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, and of the Kansas Republican senator, Sam Brownback's alternative.

"There are more reasonable measures which have the potential to be more effective and less harmful", said Muñoz.

Kennedy-Brownback's measure will fix new procedures and resources for data bank identification systems and others, to increase the possibility to detain terrorists before they enter the country. Likewise, it requires that the INS tracks down the trail of foreign students who take professional English or Aviation courses. It also requires, that the airlines provide the authorities lists of international passengers to determine if there are suspects on board. Now, that is done on a voluntary basis.

Despite that Feinstein-Kyl proposal does not requests a national identification card in private industry, there are offers to create that next year. Oracle Corp executive, Larry Ellison, who met with federal officers, has offered that.

Federal Documents

Feinstein-Kyl's plan, also requests that all federal should be made fraud proof, that they include biometric information if needed, which will include the visa. Those documents include work permits, immigration documents, Social Security cards and pilot licenses, among others. It reforms the system to dispense which 29 countries now have, and through which 23 million entered the United States last fiscal year. From the Latin American countries, Argentina y Uruguay have a dispensation. The countries which want to maintain their eligibility must provide fraud proof passports with biometric information which may be read at entrance points of the United States.

It also establishes, that state driver licenses provide correct information of the person, are made fraud proof and contain biometric information.

This measure also contains strict requirements for foreign students. It prohibits education institutions to provide I-20 immigration forms to foreign students. The schools will give the State Department those forms.

The INS should investigate the history of the students before the student are awarded visas. The schools should also report every three months to the INS if the student still is registered in that institution and any disciplinary or police action in which the foreign student is involved.

Also, it prohibit the automatic extension of visas to foreign students. The student should submit to a second history revision and those who have violated those conditions will not be eligible for an extension and could be deported immediately.

(Posted 10/29/01 - AmericanPatrol.com)