Speech #1050176992

These resources would help ease traffic and trade backups and would detect and deter drug trafficking. It is my hope that they be deployed on a fair basis among the northern and the southern border ports. Senator KYL and I have also worked closely with the State Department and with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to make sure that modifications were made in the implementation of border crossing improvements so that local communities. particularly in Arizona. would not be unduly harmed by laws and regulations that could not be implemented without keeping travelers from visiting. shopping. and doing business in the United States. I spoke at length on this legislation in the Judiciary Committee. and that Committee produced a full report on the difficulties that would be faced if Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 were not modified. I do not want to repeat myself here. but would like to comment briefly on some of the key issues. The legislation first addresses the socalled Section 110 problem. Section 110 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act requires the INS to develop. by September 30. 1998. an automated entry and exit control system to document the entry and departure of "every alien" arriving in and leaving the United States. The problem is that the term "every alien" could be interpreted to cover all aliens entering at land borders and seaports. which are points of entry where entryexit control has not been in place. My legislation exempts land borders and seaports from coverage of the system. and instead requires the Attorney General to submit a detailed feasibility report to Congress on what full entryexit control would involve. what it would cost. and what burdens it would impose on our States and our constituents. This is simply a sensible and responsible approach. The other provisions in the bill include reporting requirements on data obtained from the entryexit control system that would be in operation at airports. provisions to fix some serious problems that are being experienced on the Southern border with the issuance of the new biometric "laser visas"which I know is of great concern to Senator KYL and others on the Southern borderand authorization for additional Customs and INS resources for border inspections and enforcement. I will say a bit more about the Section 110 problem because that is the provision that is most important to me. Implementing Section 110 at the land borders is essentially impossible at the moment. No onenot INS. not the State Department. and not anyone in Congress--has come up with a feasible way of implementing such a system at the land borders. At a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims just last week. testimony was heard from a private sector technology company that developing feasible technology to implement Section 110 would require "substantial" time. "ultimately long lead times". and "significant resources." none of which the company could specify with any precision given the absolutely monumental nature of the task. Commenting on the sheer size of the database that would be needed to contain the number of visitor entry and exit records that would in theory be collected and entered into the system by the INS. Ann Cohen.