US cracks down on visa security

All visitors travelling to the US on visas are to be fingerprinted and photographed from next year in an attempt stop terrorists entering the country.

The high tech border security system could have prevented two of the September 11 hijackers, said Homeland Security Department under-secretary Asa Hutchinson.

The million system aims to help authorities monitor the movements of foreign visitors and enable them to check their identification against terrorist watch lists.

Mr Hutchinson said if it had been in place earlier it could have caught suicide hijackers Mohammed Atta, who had overstayed his visa, and Hani Hanjour, who failed to show up at university as required by his student visa.

“Through our virtual border, we will know who violates our entry requirements, who overstays and violates the terms of their stay and who should be welcome again,” he said.

In 99.9% of the cases, the visitor will simply be wished a good day or sent on their way, he told members of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“But with that small percentage of hits, our country will be made much safer and our immigration system will be given a foundation of integrity that has been lacking for too long.”

The pictures and fingerprints will be taken electronically at all airport and seaports from January 1.

It will later be expanded to land border crossings and possibly enhanced to include iris scans or facial recognition technology, Mr Hutchinson said.

Travellers with visas made up about 60%, or 23 million, of the foreign visitors to America last year.

All the September 11 attackers travelled to the US on approved visas.

The State Department plans to start interviewing at least 90% of people applying for a visa to visit America.