Keeping It Real for US VISIT

In light of the House hearing yesterday on the Homeland Security Department's sluggish development of a computer system to track foreign visitors entering and leaving the United States, it's helpful to remember history.

Congress called for the entry/exit system -- later dubbed the US VISIT program -- in the U.S. Patriot Act, which was passed a little more than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. In the act, Congress stated, "In light of the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the United States on September 11, 2001, it is the sense of the Congress that ... the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of State, should fully implement the integrated entry and exit data system for airports, seaports, and land border ports of entry ... with all deliberate speed and as expeditiously as practicable."

The message: Build the system fast, very fast. "Expeditiously as practicable" meant Congress gave developers an excruciatingly tight deadline for the system to be operational. In two years, by Dec. 31, 2003, Congress wanted the system to be operational in 115 airports and 14 major seaports, and by Dec. 31, 2004, it wanted the system to be deployed to the 50 busiest land border crossings.

For sure, in the fall of 2001, emotions ran high and fear gripped many lawmakers who wanted to show the public that they were doing something -- anything -- to protect the nation, but the deadlines were simply unrealistic for a system with that scope.

Still, DHS was able to meet the deadline for the entry portion of the system because it had legacy systems scattered throughout agencies -- such as systems in the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI and the State Department -- that it could tie together to check visitors' identities and whether they were on a criminal watch list. But no system existed for checking identities when visitors left the country. DHS would have to build that part from scratch. That meant the exit portion would take much longer to build, be higher risk, and cost billions of dollars more than the $380 million price tag for the entry portion of the system, according to the Government Accountability Office.

We can only hope that Congress, including members of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, will remember the sky-high expectations that were put on the developers of the US VISIT system, and, now in an atmosphere that is far less charged with emotion and fear, can provide more level-headed milestones, provide US VISIT developers with realistic deadlines and the necessary resources.