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

But I'm still confused as to why people are up in arms about fingerprinting in general - we constantly do biometric validation on photographs? Why is a digital image of our fingerprints so much worse than an image of our face?

Is it the criminal connotation?
Apart from the inconvenience (not to mention the hygiene issues from touching a specific spot that 1000 people a day carrying foreign viruses and bacteria have touched), it is not so much the fingerprinting itself but what the government can do with them once the technology improves to the point where you can be uniquely identified in a second from your prints using inexpensive devices.

As fingerprinting becomes required for one thing, it becomes easier to convince people to allow implementation for something else. People start to think, "they already do it for X, so why not Y?" You personally have already demonstrated that attitude ... "they already do fingerprinting at the DMV, so what's wrong if they use it at the airport?". That incremental tolerance is why it needs to be opposed long before it gets used for expansive and intrusive purposes; by the time it gets to that point, it is probably too late.

Each additional use of fingerprints puts us another step closer to a Gattaca-like society where you have to give fingerprints as you turn every other corner. Once they can track your movements to that level of detail, they can start constructing profiles of different types of criminals based on those movements, and you can become a suspect merely based on fitting that profile of movements, even if you are innocent. And they can use it to control your movements as well ... after a crime, they can just order the fingerprint system to disable access to buses, trains, banks, schools, libraries, etc. for everybody within a given radius who fits the profile of the suspect(s).

It is true that a similar thing may happen if facial recognition technology ever gets sophisticated enough. But for its usefulness as a unique identifier, that lags way behind fingerprinting; facial recognition software still has a nontrivial error rate, and even identical twins have different fingerprints. So fingerprinting and/or its close cousin, retina scans, are far more likely to be the choice of technology they will try to implement bit by bit and get citizens to accept each additional use of it.
 
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But I'm still confused as to why people are up in arms about fingerprinting in general - we constantly do biometric validation on photographs? Why is a digital image of our fingerprints so much worse than an image of our face?

Is it the criminal connotation?

It is just like a healthy person wonder why some people always talk about cancer. Some other people have this issue (some minor ) you may be symphathetic or you can say they deserve it, but they have this iuuse
they want to discuss.
 
I believe a GC holder on these forums had already posted their experience with the US-VISIT program. He was sent to the visitors line and fingerprinted.
SFO separated visitors and LPRs/citizens. LPRs were on LPRs/citizens line and got fingerprinted/photographed.
 
SFO separated visitors and LPRs/citizens. LPRs were on LPRs/citizens line and got fingerprinted/photographed.

At Houston, TX (IAH - Intercontinental), there is a separate lines for Visitors, for LPRs and for citizens.
 
Somebody wrote elsewhere that since this new program, GC holders will now have to get in the Visitor's line, which are painfully long depending on how many flights arrived. But a separate line for GCs is better than that, though they could have kept GCs and Citizen's in the same line, only FP'd GCs upon arrival.
 
Somebody wrote elsewhere that since this new program, GC holders will now have to get in the Visitor's line, which are painfully long depending on how many flights arrived.
Apparently how they separate the lines varies by airport.
But a separate line for GCs is better than that, though they could have kept GCs and Citizen's in the same line, only FP'd GCs upon arrival.
Citizens wouldn't like that, because the LPRs in front of them being fingerprinted would make the citizens have to wait longer. And if it inconveniences too many citizens too soon, that makes it more difficult for the government to expand the program to include citizens. So most airports will either have LPRs using the visitors line, or a separate line for LPRs only.
 
Citizens wouldn't like that, because the LPRs in front of them being fingerprinted would make the citizens have to wait longer. And if it inconveniences too many citizens too soon, that makes it more difficult for the government to expand the program to include citizens. So most airports will either have LPRs using the visitors line, or a separate line for LPRs only.

According to USCIS, LPRs and Citizens will go through the same line, but I guess some airports took that to mean let's separate them. :rolleyes:
 
I became a PR in Sep 2007 and entered U.S. thrice after that; twice at Chicago O' Hare (Jan 2008 and today) and once at JFK (Dec 2008). At JFK, I got the EXACT same treatment as my U.S. citizen wife (no questions just stamps on passports). At O'Hare though (which btw is my home town) both times I was asked to go to a separate room (not the special registration area) where quite a few other foreigner passport holders (maybe PRs as well) were waiting. They would do some checking on the passport, no questions or anything from me and I'd be allowed to go after 10-15 minutes with a thank you. This kind of pissed me me off especially today since in Jan 2008 I thought it's been only a few months since I became a PR and it would take some time to get me off special registration list and breathed a sigh of relief at JFK. But same thing again is making me think that maybe even after I become a citizen this "special treatment" may continue. Any thoughts?
 
I became a PR in Sep 2007 and entered U.S. thrice after that; twice at Chicago O' Hare (Jan 2008 and today) and once at JFK (Dec 2008). At JFK, I got the EXACT same treatment as my U.S. citizen wife (no questions just stamps on passports). At O'Hare though (which btw is my home town) both times I was asked to go to a separate room (not the special registration area) where quite a few other foreigner passport holders (maybe PRs as well) were waiting. They would do some checking on the passport, no questions or anything from me and I'd be allowed to go after 10-15 minutes with a thank you. This kind of pissed me me off especially today since in Jan 2008 I thought it's been only a few months since I became a PR and it would take some time to get me off special registration list and breathed a sigh of relief at JFK. But same thing again is making me think that maybe even after I become a citizen this "special treatment" may continue. Any thoughts?

If you looked carefully on the seats behind you in the room you will find USC as well. This has nothing to do with status, it is the similarity between names which will stay even after citizenship till the name of the other person is dropped from the list by certain way or the other add to that some quality control random samples, signifying the importance of secondary check which keep jobs continuous for those officers ...etc. Take it easy, for me I will make an extra time between the flight and the connection because I missed the connection twice.
 
On my trip last month I entered at Fort Lauderdale, and they had one big line for visitors, PRs, and citizens. There were multiple officers at the counters, but everybody still had to wait to get to the front of the same line before going to the next available officer. All counters had the fingerprint device, but some people were being fingerprinted and some weren't (based on their citizenship, of course).
 
mmed, thanks for your response. But if your theory is correct (which I think it most probably is), what's the explanation for the immigration officer at JFK letting me go just after stamping? I wasn't asked any questions, no going to a separate area or anything like that; just went through the counter with wife in 20 secs.
 
mmed, thanks for your response. But if your theory is correct (which I think it most probably is), what's the explanation for the immigration officer at JFK letting me go just after stamping?
Your JFK visit was in Dec. 2008, which was before they started applying the US-VISIT program to permanent residents in January of this year.
 
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