Expect to be fingerprinted

EFFECTIVE January 1, 2004, nationals of Trinidad and Tobago arriving in the United States with visas will be finger- printed, their photographs taken, their travel documents scanned, and their their identification checked against a terrorist watch list. The new system was announced in Washington yesterday by Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security Department’s Under-Secretary, and will apply to people from all over the world as part of US measures to deal with terorrism. The new rules will place a further burden on the travelling public as already passengers from this country travelling to the United States following the September 11 attacks have been subjected to longer check-in times as Piarco where their luggage is searched before boarding aircraft.

Security guards at Piarco Airport search the luggage of passengers inside the terminal building before they are properly cleared, while further checks are made before the luggage is loaded onto the aircraft. There are also spot checks of shoes at Piarco, following the incident involving English shoe-bomber Robert Reid who attempted to blow up at American Airlines flight which was en route to Miami from Paris. Trinidadian basketballer Kwame James, who was returning home for Christmas 2001, assisted in subduing Reid who was later jailed for life for his crime. The United States Government has decided to implement these stringent measures in an effort to track down suspected terrorists arriving in the US. The US Congress has agreed to spend US $380 million to put this new system in place.

Nationals of TT will be subjected to this new system on arrival at Miami International Airport, JFK International Airport, New York, Washington DC and Boston. Hutchinson said yesterday that such a tracking system could have stopped two of the September 11 hijackers. The new system is called the US Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology. The system, which goes into effect January 1, will check the comings and goings of foreign travellers who arrive in the US carrying visas. Travellers with visas made up about 60 percent, or 23 million of foreign visitors to the United States last year. Hutchinson said such a system could have caught hijackers Mohammed Atta, who had overstayed his visa on a previous occasion, and Hani Hanjour, when he failed to show up at school as required by his student visa.

“Border security can no longer be just a coastline, or a line on the ground between two nations. It’s also a line of information in a computer, telling us who is in this country, for how long and for what reason,” Hutchinson said. Under the system, a visa carrier will be required to provide immigrant and citizenship status, nationality, country of residence and an address where the visitor will be staying in the United States. “In 99.9 percent of the cases, the visitor will simply be wished a good day or sent on their way,” Hutchinson said in a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “But with that small percentage of hits, our country will be made much safer and our immigration system will be given a foundation of integrity that has been lacking for too long.” When the visitor leaves, Hutchinson said, the system will verify the traveller’s departure and identification. All the hijackers travelled to the United States on visas; two were in the country illegally at the time of the attacks.