BUFFALO, N.Y. - Foreigners entering the United States across the busiest borders will be photographed and electronically fingerprinted beginning Jan. 1 with the goal of flushing out potential terrorists.
The "biometric checks" will be used on travelers with visas and those under the visa-waiver program, which lets citizens from 27 nations that are U.S. allies enter the country without a visa, said James Williams, the program's director.
"Think of it as our house," Williams said Tuesday in Buffalo, where the system will be implemented at the Peace Bridge linking the city to Fort Erie, Ontario. "We want people to come to this country, to our house. But we want to know why they're coming, and we want to know did they leave on time."
The US-VISIT program currently fingerprints and photographs all foreign visitors who travel with a visa when they arrive at major U.S. airports and seaports. The information is checked against databases to verify documents and flag names that appear on terrorist or law enforcement watch lists.
By law, the program must expand to the 50 busiest border crossings by the end of the year, and to all 165 crossings by the end of 2005.
The additional checks, which authorities said take only seconds, are not expected to slow traffic at the northern border, since most of the travelers are visa-exempt Canadians, who would not be subjected to them.
At the southern border, most Mexican citizens with certain visas allowing regular entry into the United States also would skip the checks. The exceptions would be those staying longer than a month or those who planned to travel more than 25 miles from the border in Texas, California and New Mexico or 75 miles from the border in Arizona.
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