Immigration Service fingerprints of greencard holders at airport,Greencard rights are protected

Jackolantern said:
I think you can avoid it if you become a citizen.
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I will become a US citizen. However, I don't see the point in harassing any permanent resident with absolutely no criminal record about an issue since long resolved, certified documentation/proof provided in 2006 that all charges were dropped and researched again yesterday. Any such 'investigation' is absolutely pointless to the security of USA and a total waste of the government's resources.

Surely, they can add a note somewhere in my computer file which shows this arrest was already researched and resolved. I travel a lot, this is gonna be terribly annoying... :mad:
 
What did they ask you? Did you have to show them your court paper?

Sorry to hear your story, I am thinking to cancel my trip to visit my mother this summer. I won't go abroad till I got citizenship.
 
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Nicejoe said:
What did they ask you? Did you have to show them your court paper?

Sorry to hear your story, I am thinking to cancel my trip to visit my mother this summer. I won't go abroad till I got citizenship.
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I didn't know this was going to happen so I didn't have any paperwork. The guy asked me about arrest (after 90 minute wait) and then told me to sit down. I got fingerprinted again after he researched me on his computer for 10 minutes and I was on my way.

Surely, someone who has lived in the USA since 1987, pays taxes, is married to an American & has American kids can be trusted as much as a Canadian citizen who does not have to face this inquisition.
 
danmoore said:
I will become a US citizen. However, I don't see the point in harassing any permanent resident with absolutely no criminal record about an issue since long resolved, certified documentation/proof provided in 2006 that all charges were dropped and researched again yesterday. Any such 'investigation' is absolutely pointless to the security of USA and a total waste of the government's resources.
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I agree, once they have cleared it up they should tag the incident appropriately so the next time it shows up the officer knows not to bother you.

But maybe it won't happen next time, because when you traveled before it didn't happen. Previous officers probably had the common sense to ignore that old arrest, but this time you faced an overzealous officer who didn't have that intelligence.
 
danmoore said:
I have been permanent resident since 91. Came back from Europe the other day & I got sent into the secondary room at immigration. After a 90 minute wait, my name was called and the immigration officer asked me if I have ever been arrested and I said 'yes'. He said I had been called in because my arrest showed up. It was an arrest from 1997 and all charges were dropped. I had even provided all the court documents to the INS to renew my green card in 2006. They took all my fingerprints again and my photo

I asked him how to avoid all this hassle next time, he said there's no way to avoid it, it will happen every single time.
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It happened to me with waiting almost the same time and the same question. My answer was no arrest, then he stamped my passport and told me this is similarity in names. Next time, the same thing but with different question "what visa you had before GC" I answered, then stamp my passport. I was told that secondary inspection for me will be every time even after citizenship. I am going to make at least 6 hours interval between arrival and connection flight, I lost flights in both times.
 
Nicejoe said:
I am thinking to cancel my trip to visit my mother this summer. I won't go abroad till I got citizenship.
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Does it have to be that extreme? If you can not make a overseas trip,
how can you get the citizenship that requires more scrutiny?
 
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There is technically absolutely NO WAY that your finger prints are matched against a database in real time. You would need to spend a long time at the counter for that to happen. Even with all the computer juice there is, this is impossible to do.

They are going into a giant database for possible later matching.

They may do a real time check against some "most wanted", but even that would be very limited.
 
MartinAub said:
There is technically absolutely NO WAY that your finger prints are matched against a database in real time. You would need to spend a long time at the counter for that to happen. Even with all the computer juice there is, this is impossible to do.
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Based on your A# or visa information, they can retrieve the fingerprints that were previously associated with you and compare them to the new prints you are giving. It is not necessary to search against an entire database of millions of prints.
 
But for what possible reason?

Seems a little far fetched to assume you commited a crime, left the country and then return. I mean you should get extra jail time for stupidity, if you did that.

Plus, given the number of passangers that come into the US every day, even that would be a HUGHE deal for any computer system.

Further, the prints need to be very acurate to do an automatic match even with your previous old ones.
 
I still cannot understand why people are worried about criminal checks based on fingerprints, when CBP and INS have been doing criminal checks based on NAME all this time. You're no more likely to get flagged, in fact less likely since there will be fewer false positives based on the same name.

The primary purpose is to ensure that your biometrics at the POE match what CBP already has on record.
 
MartinAub said:
But for what possible reason?
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As an extra check that you're not using somebody else's card. Of course, by failing to do the same for citizens, it's not a very useful check because criminals can steal or borrow a passport.
Further, the prints need to be very acurate to do an automatic match even with your previous old ones.
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They can tell you to try again if the machine isn't reading your prints clearly. And modern fingerprint matching technology is sophisticated enough to tolerate a certain lack of clarity yet still make a match.
 
TheRealCanadian said:
I still cannot understand why people are worried about criminal checks based on fingerprints, when CBP and INS have been doing criminal checks based on NAME all this time. You're no more likely to get flagged, in fact less likely since there will be fewer false positives based on the same name.

The primary purpose is to ensure that your biometrics at the POE match what CBP already has on record.
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It bothers us because:

1. It is another step closer to requiring fingerprinting for other purposes ... boarding a bus, train, entering a library, etc.

2. It really doesn't improve security, because criminals can steal or borrow or forge a US passport and avoid getting fingerprinted.

3. It caused permanent residents to be sent to the longer visitors line, which moves slower and seems to have more hostile immigration officers.
 
Jack,

IT is my profession and there is no way for this to be THAT reliable and fast in an everyday, many thousands of times occuring event multiplied by 10 fingers per person.

Forget Q from 007 movies. Ain't happening.
 
MartinAub said:
IT is my profession and there is no way for this to be THAT reliable and fast in an everyday, many thousands of times occuring event multiplied by 10 fingers per person.
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IT is also my profession, and I have researched some of what goes into fingerprint recognition, and it can be reliable and fast enough for what they're using it for. It is not hard at all to compare one set of stored prints with another set that was just scanned. Swipe the green card, retrieve the prints based on the ID number, compare. Easy as cheeeeese.

They don't need to be super-accurate, because they're not trying to identify a print among millions in a database, their main goal is to identify impostors by comparing ONE set of stored prints against ONE set of freshly scanned prints per person. If you're not the same person, the chances are very high that even a very rudimentary fingerprint comparison will turn up mismatches. Even if the matching technology is so primitive and uses such little information that there is a much as a 1 in 10000 chance of somebody else's prints matching your stored prints, when you combine that with the odds of that person stealing or borrowing your card, and having a face and age similar to you, it's down to less than 1 in a million people who can successfully get away with such a scam.

And so what if thousands of people get fingerprinted every day at each airport. People are being fingerprinted at the rate of only one every minute or two per station. They have to fetch data anyway for everybody, and they've already been handling that for decades. Fetching some fingerprint information on top of that is no huge extra burden for the system, it's just a pain for the people who get fingerprinted.
 
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Today's experience at JFK

Hello guys! I just wanna post my today's experience at JFK terminal 4.

News at JFK

There are brand new booths specially for Green Card Holders, it took me 10 minutes from the plane to customs. And they probably built these booths because they started fingerprinted permanent residents - I hate it but what we can do.

Experience with officer

As you may know I spent only 1 month in USA and then left for Europe. Today I returned after 5 months. I had just one proof of my studies abroad in my bag and I didnt take it out, because I wasn't asked for that.

Here is our conversation - I came to the booth very very nervous. The officer asked me something and I didn't understand him clearly - it was probably sth like "How long were you out for?"

Being nervous I quickly said everything: "I was in europe for 5 months because I needed to finish studies that I commenced years ago"

Officer: "5 months?"
Officer: "You just get your green card and left for so long?"

Me: "I had to"

Officer: "How long will stay on this trip?"

Me: "Don't know exactly, up to couple weeks, then I have to leave for school for 4 months and than coming back for good"

Officer (bad view): "your right fingers ... "

Everything good finally:) and I got to my passport stamp with "ARC" and my number. What does it mean?

Since our first sentence he looked at me very very rudely as I killed somebody! I expected bit more official and polite conversation. He was very arrogant and impolite.

I'm now having a very good time in New York, but leaving next weekend again. I'm convinced that this would be the last time up to 5 month trip, but I simply don't feel safe. I also don't know why he didnt want to see my proofs of study for example.

If I come again after trip <6 months can I expect the same at worst?
 
Hannah7 said:
Since our first sentence he looked at me very very rudely as I killed somebody! I expected bit more official and polite conversation. He was very arrogant and impolite.
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And he expected you to actually live in the US. Looks like you were both disappointed.
 
Quite frankly I am not pleased with this process as it does nothing to secure safety. It makes no sense to take all those prints and photo when you already have them and a print is on the GC itself. Why not device a tool that compares that print to the real one for PRs? But that would be too simply wouldn't it?

This presents problems for GC holders that are married to US Citizens - specifically when little children are concerned? Now that they have split GC holders to a separate booth are US Citizens going to be allowed to stand in the GC line? I plan on standing in line with my wife when we go to Europe in April since kids are involved - and I would like to see a CBP officer give me grief for standing in the non-citizen lane. They won't like my response for sure.
 
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