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<DIV class=timestamp>December 15, 2006</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">Administration to Drop Effort to Track
if Visitors Leave </NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE type=" "
version="1.0"></NYT_BYLINE>
<DIV class=byline>By <A title="More Articles by Rachel L. Swarns"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/rachel_l_swarns/index.html?inline=nyt-per">RACHEL
L. SWARNS</A> and <A title="More Articles by Eric Lipton"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/eric_lipton/index.html?inline=nyt-per">ERIC
LIPTON</A></DIV><NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — In a major blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to
secure borders, domestic security officials have for now given up on plans to
develop a facial or fingerprint recognition system to determine whether a vast
majority of foreign visitors leave the country, officials say.</P>
<P>Domestic security officials had described the system, known as U.S. Visit, as
critical to security and important in efforts to curb illegal <A
title="More articles about immigration."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">immigration</A>.
Similarly, one-third of the overall total of illegal immigrants are believed to
have overstayed their visas, a Congressional report says. </P>
<P>Tracking visitors took on particular urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, when it became clear that some of the hijackers had remained in the
country after their visas had expired.</P>
<P>But in recent days, officials at the <A
title="More articles about the Homeland Security Department."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/homeland_security_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Homeland
Security Department</A> have conceded that they lack the financing and
technology to meet their deadline to have exit-monitoring systems at the 50
busiest land border crossings by next December. A vast majority of foreign
visitors enter and exit by land from Mexico and Canada, and the policy shift
means that officials will remain unable to track the departures.</P>
<P>A report released on Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, the
nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, restated those findings, reporting
that the administration believes that it will take 5 to 10 years to develop
technology that might allow for a cost-effective departure system. </P>
<P>Domestic security officials, who have allocated $1.7 billion since the 2003
fiscal year to track arrivals and departures, argue that creating the program
with the existing technology would be prohibitively expensive.</P>
<P>They say it would require additional employees, new buildings and roads at
border crossings, and would probably hamper the vital flow of commerce across
those borders.</P>
<P>Congress ordered the creation of such a system in 1996.</P>
<P>In an interview last week, the assistant secretary for homeland security
policy, Stewart A. Baker, estimated that an exit system at the land borders
would cost “tens of billions of dollars” and said the department had concluded
that such a program was not feasible, at least for the time being.</P>
<P>“It is a pretty daunting set of costs, both for the U.S. government and the
economy,” Mr. Stewart said. “Congress has said, ‘We want you to do it.’ We are
not going to ignore what Congress has said. But the costs here are daunting.</P>
<P>“There are a lot of good ideas and things that would make the country safer.
But when you have to sit down and compare all the good ideas people have
developed against each other, with a limited budget, you have to make choices
that are much harder.”</P>
<P>The news sent alarms to Congress, where some <A
title="More articles about Republican Party"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Republicans</A>
and <A title="More articles about Democratic Party"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Democrats</A>
warned that suspending the monitoring plan would leave the United States
vulnerable.</P>
<P>Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is a departing
subcommittee chairman on the House International Relations Committee, said the
administration could not say it was protecting domestic security without
creating a viable exit monitoring system.</P>
<P>“There will not be border security in this country until we have a knowledge
of both entry and exit,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. “We have to make a choice. Do we
want to act and control our borders or do we want to have tens of millions of
illegals continuing to pour into our country?”</P>
<P>Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is set to lead
the Homeland Security Committee, also expressed concern. </P>
<P>“It is imperative that Congress work in partnership with the department to
develop a comprehensive border security system that ensures we know who is
entering and exiting this country and one that cannot be defeated by imposters,
criminals and terrorists,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement Thursday. </P>
<P>In January 2004, domestic security officials began fingerprint scanning for
arriving visitors. The program has screened more than 64 million travelers and
prevented more than 1,300 criminals and immigration violators from entering,
officials said. </P>
<P>Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other officials often call
the program a singular achievement in making the country safer. U.S. Visit
fingerprints and photographs 2 percent of the people entering the country,
because Americans and most Canadians and Mexicans are exempt.</P>
<P>Efforts to determine whether visitors actually leave have faltered. Departure
monitoring would help officials hunt for foreigners who have not left, if
necessary. Domestic security officials say, however, it would be too expensive
to conduct fingerprint or facial recognition scans for land departures.
Officials have experimented with less costly technologies, including a system
that would monitor by radio data embedded in a travel form carried by foreigners
as they depart by foot or in vehicles. </P>
<P>Tests of that technology, Radio Frequency Identification, found a high
failure rate. At one border point, the system correctly identified 14 percent of
the 166 vehicles carrying the embedded documents, the General Accountability
Office reported. </P>
<P>The Congressional investigators noted the “numerous performance and
reliability problems” with the technology and said it remained unclear how
domestic security officials would be able to meet their legal obligation to
create an exit program.</P>
<P>Some immigration analysts said stepping away from the program raised
questions again about the commitment to enforce border security and immigration
laws.</P>
<P>A senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, Jessica
Vaughn, said the government had long been too deferential to big businesses and
travel groups that raised concerns that exit technology might disrupt travel and
trade.</P>
<P>“I worry that the issue of cost is an excuse for not doing anything,” said
Ms. Vaughn, whose group advocates curbing immigration. Domestic security
officials said they still hoped to find a way to create an exit system at land
borders. “We would to do more testing,” a spokesman for the department, Jarrod
Agen, said. “We are evaluating the initial tests to determine how to move
forward.”</P></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>