Major airports in Florida welcome new fingerprint, photo program

By JOHN PAIN, Associated Press

January 6, 2004

MIAMI — Several major airports in Florida welcomed a program launched Monday that fingerprints and photographs many foreign visitors, saying the added steps will help ensure that legitimate travelers get into the tourism-dependent state while criminals and terrorists are kept out.

But some tourism officials worried that the new procedures might create longer delays at the airport and scare away visitors.

The US-VISIT, or U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, program is designed to let Customs officials instantly check an immigrant or visitor's criminal background. It targets foreigners entering the 115 U.S. airports that handle international flights, as well as 14 major seaports.

Major international airports in Florida, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood and Orlando, have the digital fingerprint scanners and cameras in place. Fingerprints will be checked instantly against the national digital database for criminal backgrounds and any terrorist lists. Photographs will be used to help create a database for law enforcement.

The only people excluded from the program will be visitors from 27 countries — mostly European nations — whose citizens are allowed to come to the United States for up to 90 days without visas.

That worries some tourism officials in Miami, whose international airport is the busiest U.S. hub for Latin American travel and the busiest state hub for foreign travel. Many foreign travelers to Miami are from countries targeted under US-VISIT.

"We're concerned that it will unduly restrict tourism, particularly in gateway cities like Miami," said William Talbert, president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. "It has the potential to be cumbersome."

But federal Homeland Security Department and Miami airport officials said there wouldn't be much of an effect.

Before the system, it took about 60 seconds to 90 seconds on average for each passenger to get through Customs in Miami. The new procedures should add about 15 seconds to that, said Tom Winkowski, director of South Florida field operations for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

About 7.5 million foreign passengers use the Miami airport each year, with most coming from or going to Latin America, he said. He estimated that just under a quarter of those passengers, or about 1.7 million people, will be checked under the new system.

"We at the airport believe that this is a true enhancement. It is not obtrusive," said Bruce Drum, associate director of the Miami-Dade County Aviation Department.

Orlando International Airport officials are monitoring the program to see how it affects foreign travelers, who account for only 8 percent of traffic there, spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said.

"Anything that is going to add to security, we favor," said Jim Reynolds, spokesman for Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. "But you have to keep a reasonable amount of time to get through the airport."

He said the program only added a few seconds to the time it took each person to pass through Customs on Monday.

But several passengers who went through the system Monday in Miami reported that the process caused delays.

Elias Valencia, 47, of Mexico City, said it took about 6 minutes for him to get photographed and fingerprinted, much longer than it usually takes to get through Customs.

"I hope it's faster next time," the businessman said. "There were a lot of people missing their connecting flights."

But he thought U.S. officials would work the bugs out of the system and said he didn't mind giving more information to enter the country.

"I feel safer," Valencia said.

Other passengers also said the extra wait was bearable because they thought it provided more security.

Ana de Monterrosa, 32, of Guatemala City, said it took about 20 minutes to go through Customs, twice as long as it normally did.

"Everything was fine. It was very well controlled," she said as she held her 9-month-old daughter, Natalia.