Protests at plan to fingerprint foreign visitors

United States authorities will fingerprint, photograph and register about 100,000 foreign visitors a year in an anti-terrorism effort which has outraged Congressmen and immigration groups, who say Middle Eastern men will be targeted.

The American Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday that the programme of frontier checks and registering foreign nationals would help remove those who overstayed their visas.

"This system will expand substantially America's scrutiny of those foreign visitors who may pose a national security concern and enter our country. And it will provide a vital line of defence in the war against terrorism," Mr Ashcroft said.

Those targeted will come from countries considered by the US to be sponsors of terrorism, and other unspecified nations that critics said are likely to be Middle Eastern.

The policy was prompted by concern about the lack of records on tourists, students and other foreign visitors after the 11 September attacks, Mr Ashcroft told a news conference. All 19 hijackers entered the country on valid visas but several stayed beyond their expiry dates.

Asked if the new system would have caught any of the 19 hijackers or barred their entry, he replied: "I can't speculate on those things right now. I haven't really gone through that."

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, denounced the system as employing racial and ethic profiling. "Rather than helping to protect our citizens, these registration rules will only serve to further alienate the American Muslim community and our Muslim allies abroad, two crucial allies in our fight against terrorism," he said.

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a policy group, said the change would add to an already overburdened process and would fail to improve security.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticised the measures as "discriminatory" and likely to be ineffective.