Testimony of Robert Mocny, Acting Director, US-VISIT Program Department of Homeland Security, Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security

Release Date: January 31, 2007

Chairman Feinstein, Ranking Member Cornyn, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for inviting me to describe the operation of the US-VISIT program, which has just marked its third anniversary.

In those three years, US-VISIT has significantly strengthened our nation's immigration and border security capabilities to a level that simply did not exist before. I am proud of our dedicated team of professionals, who are working hard to solve some difficult challenges facing our nation.

And I am proud that many are supportive of the program's progress. For example, some governments expressed apprehension when we first launched the program. Now, many of those same governments are seeking our expertise as they work to establish their own biometrics-based border management programs. US-VISIT has clearly become the standard for the rest of the world.

The backbone of US-VISIT is our innovative use of biometrics, which enhances our capacity to know definitively who is coming into our country and to crack down on fraudulent document use. With biometric identification technologies at its base, US-VISIT has revolutionized our ability to verify that travelers are who they say they are and do not pose a threat to the United States.

US-VISIT also provides immigration and law enforcement decision-makers with critical information when and where they need it.

But perhaps the best way to evaluate the success of US-VISIT is to look at what we have achieved against our four goals: to enhance the security of our citizens and visitors; to facilitate legitimate travel and trade; to ensure the integrity of our immigration system; and to protect the privacy of our visitors.

In terms of enhancing security, since January 2004, we have processed more than 76 million visitors, and in that time have intercepted approximately 1,800 immigration violators and people with criminal histories — based on biometrics alone.

US-VISIT also provides the infrastructure for the State Department's BioVisa program, which consular officials use when they process a person applying for a visa to the United States.

Biometrics are also depriving potential terrorists of one of their most powerful tools: the ability to use fraudulent or stolen identification documents to enter the country. This means that biometrics also protect travelers by making it virtually impossible for anyone else to claim their identities should their travel documents be lost or stolen.

US-VISIT also tracks and records changes in immigration status and matches entry and exit records to determine overstays. ICE officials have made more than 290 arrests based on US-VISIT overstay information. US-VISIT uses and maintains the Arrival and Departure Information System — ADIS, which has grown to be the definitive immigration status system that provides overstay information for subsequent action.

Regarding our second goal, facilitating legitimate travel and trade, US-VISIT's biometrics-based capabilities, while enhancing security, have not increased wait times at our ports of entry.

US-VISIT has also strengthened the integrity of our immigration system, our third goal. We continue to work with the FBI to achieve interoperability between their fingerprint database and DHS'. We are piloting a program that will provide federal, state and local law enforcement officers biometrics-based access to criminal and immigration information.

We are also moving from the collection of a 2-fingerprint to a 10-fingerprint standard. This will help us collect more accurate and actionable information on those attempting to enter our country.

We also recognize that keeping “bad people” out is not enough; we must ensure that those few people who remain in the country as a threat to our nation's security do not go undetected. This brings me to perhaps our greatest challenge — the development of biometric exit procedures that address our goals of security and facilitation of travel and trade at three very different environments: air, sea and land. Over the past 2 years, we have been evaluating new and evolving technologies that allow us to definitively know when a traveler has left the country.

Through pilot programs at 14 air and seaports, we have learned that the technology to record a traveler's departure works, but that to be most effective, it must be integrated into the existing travel process. We have already reached out to the travel industry to identify the best way to integrate exit procedures into the traveler's current airport experience.

The land border poses its own unique challenges. Assistant Secretary Barth adequately explained these challenges. But you should know that we have been pursing possible solutions there as well.

US-VISIT recently completed a test of Radio Frequency Identification or RFID technology at five land ports of entry, proving that vicinity-read RFID technology is a viable solution to meeting the multiple challenges of the land border environment. But as cited in the recent GAO report and our own findings, more work needs to be done.

Finally, we are achieving our mission without compromising our 4th goal of protecting the personal privacy of our visitors. Privacy is part of everything we do, and is essential to our mission.

But US-VISIT's job is not done. Challenges remain, especially regarding a solution to exit procedures. We've proven the skeptics wrong in the past, and we believe we can do it again going forward. Thank you again for your support and for the opportunity to testify here today.

This page was last modified on January 31, 2007