Bush administration wants to fingerprint, photograph more foreign visitors

By Suzanne Gamboa

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration wants to photograph, fingerprint and get detailed information from thousands more foreign visitors to the United States, according to law enforcement officials.

The plan will have the most effect on people from Muslim and Middle Eastern countries, say some familiar with the proposal. It will apply to people who stay more than a month and is based on an alien registration law put in place in the 1940s during World War II.

“There is no question that there are laws on the books that allow the United States government to protect the American people,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “And the president knows that we can take action to protect people that is fully in accordance with protecting civil rights and civil liberties.”

Officials who described the plan Tuesday on condition of not being identified by name said the Justice Department would expand the reach of an already existing law to keep better track of tourists, business travelers, students and temporary workers considered possible security threats.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the plan, details of which are expected to be announced this week.

Attorney General John Ashcroft would not respond to a reporter’s questions about the plan as he made his way to a meeting with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Sensenbrenner has been a leading critic of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, an agency within the Justice Department that since Sept. 11 has acknowledged gaps in tracking foreigners in the country.

Sensenbrenner’s aides declined to comment on whether the proposal was discussed during the meeting with Ashcroft.

Ashcroft has undertaken a number of initiatives since the Sept. 11 attacks to better track foreign visitors.

Foreigners seeking to live in the United States are photographed and fingerprinted and must provide detailed background information to the government. But the same is not required of most visitors.

Ashcroft is seeking to expand a 1998 rule that requires visitors from Libya, Iraq, Sudan and Iran to register with the government and be fingerprinted and photographed.

The rule could be applied to people from as many as 35 countries under the proposal, a law enforcement source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. However, people from any country could be required to register if something in their background brings them to the attention of U.S. officials, the official said.

Judy Golub of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the proposal could be the first step toward requiring all visitors – and perhaps all citizens – to carry government identification cards.

“We don’t need false solutions to real problems and this is what this is,” she said.

Associated Press Writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.

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