Special kiosks that will help the federal government track whether foreign travelers leave the United States when they're supposed to will soon be installed in the international departure areas of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
It will be the first time the United States has formally monitored foreign travelers exiting the country under the US-VISIT program.
Such knowledge, officials believe, will help catch terrorists. A handful of the 9-11 terrorists had overstayed visas, and, presumably, they would have been tripped up by US-VISIT.
Since January, the government has fingerprinted most foreign travelers coming into international airports such as D/FW. That effort, by airline industry accounts, has been effective in catching suspicious individuals.
More than 9 million foreigners have been fingerprinted since Jan. 5 and have had their personal information vetted against federal crime lists and terrorist watch lists.
More than 1,000 matches have been recorded at airports and seaports, with 17 hits just this weekend, according to US-VISIT implementation director Shonnie Lyon. The most common factor for a match is an earlier deportation.
At a few airports, the government has been testing monitoring methods including kiosks, mobile devices and gate screening to determine which works the best.
In Chicago and Baltimore airports and the Miami cruise terminal, 70,000 exit tests have been conducted.
Now, exit testing will begin at D/FW, 10 more airports and the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport.
The kiosks have been delivered but are not yet in operation, said Paul Rimmer, port director at D/FW for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
D/FW is a test site for each of the three types of kiosks.
Most will be in secure international areas, but some may be set up in general terminal areas where a few international flights depart.
On Sept. 30, US-VISIT will also have to handle 12 million passengers who qualify for visa waivers but will no longer be exempt from the program.
Part of the problem with US-VISIT exit kiosks are that they are self-service. Travelers need to check themselves out of the country. Officials are attempting to devise ways to encourage travelers to do that. At Chicago O'Hare Airport, only 59 percent of travelers have been checking out, Donald Zoufal, deputy commissioner of safety and security for the Chicago Department of Aviation, said Wednesday as part of a conference panel in Houston.
So officials have been considering putting kiosks in different locations in the airport -- near ticketing, at security checkpoints and near the gates. They've been using kiosks or a much more expensive hand-held validation machine to check out foreigners as they get on flights.
"It could be these pilots show that none of those options works," Lyon said.
Officials had no comment on whether the US-VISIT test program has stopped a known terrorist.
