The federal government’s proposed US VISIT Exit program will require additional security employees at the nation’s airports. Just how many will depend upon which tract Homeland Security takes.
US VISIT Exit is a bio-metric sampling program mandated by Congress to record the departures of foreign visitors. The theory is that once fingerprints are collected, the government can assume a person is no longer in the country and thus no longer a direct terrorist threat.
In a Dec. 3 presentation at the ACI-NA International Aviation Issues Seminar in Washington, Shonnie Lyon, the acting deputy director for the US VISIT program, outlined the lessons learned at two pilot programs last summer. One test involved Customs Border Protection agents collecting fingerprints in Detroit as departing foreign residents boarded selected international flights. The second test was performed by Transportation Security Agency screeners in Atlanta before foreign residents proceeded to the security screening area.
Lyon indicated that nearly 35,000 individuals had their fingerprints scanned and only one person refused to be tested.
Last month, Homeland Security indicated that it planned to move ahead with the program but it has not indicated how it would be performing the bio-metric tests. The government had earlier proposed that the airlines perform the task. The airlines and ACI-NA opposed that plan. Congress requested a pilot test using an airline, but no airline has stepped forward to participate in the test.
Lyon indicated that in Detroit the scans did not delay any flight and were handled within the 35 minutes carriers used to board the planes. The scans in the gateway areas did not create any new bottlenecks.
In the Detroit test, flights were randomly selected when CBP agents were available for the extra task.
In Atlanta, the TSA document checker would refer travelers with non-US passports to a bio-metric screening location. Once the hand print was screened, the traveler would then be routed back for the traditional TSA screening. Lyon said this process added about 2 minutes onto the time spent in line for those who needed to be bio-metrically screened.
To handle all flights, Lyon said CBP would need to hire additional staff. Using the CBP-gateway mode, he said a new system would only impact international airports. If the TSA had to scan the foreign passengers, as in the Atlanta test, then each and every airport would need to be involved so as to scan all those traveling on connecting flights to reach their international flights.
No matter which route is selected, airports will face a “massive wiring job” as the government will be collecting “about 800 percent” more data than it does now, said Kenneth Dunlap, director of security, North America, for International Air Transportation Association.