The Immigration and Naturalization Service has announced that beginning next spring it will issue new biometric border crossing cards that read fingerprints. The cards are used annually by millions of Mexican nationals entering the US to shop, visit family and conduct brief business here. The INS states that the new cards are considered to be highly secure and should protect against fraud. INS inspectors will be able to track people more closely who use stolen cards to enter the US. According to the INS, card holders currently can claim their card has been lost or stolen and receive a duplicate. They can then distribute the duplicate to another person or use the duplicate if their card is revoked. The INS claims such practices will not be possible with the new cards.
The new cards were called for under last year’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (“IIRAIRA”). IIRAIRA requires the biometric border crossing cards be in place by April 1998. The remaining two to five million border crossing cards must be phased out by October 1999.
In other border news, the INS has begun a major crackdown on illegal immigration across the Texas-Mexico border. The INS will dispatch nearly more than 100 new agents to Brownsville, Texas under “Operation Rio Grande.” The INS operation is in response to a 21% increase in illegal immigrant captures in the area over the last six months. By the end of the government fiscal year ending in September, the INS will have increased the number of border agents in the area by 53% over a four year period.
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