http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=4856560

Bush Nixes Secure Border Plan
Is It Really About Money?
By Mark Matthews
Dec. 15 - KGO - The government tonight is giving up on at least part of it's plan to secure the borders, and we're told it's all because it costs too much.

The government tracks foreigners to know who is coming into the country and when they leave. In a major blow to the Bush administration's plans to secure the borders the Homeland Security Department has decided it doesn't have enough money to do the job.

Back in 1996 congress ordered the creation of the U.S. Visit System. But it picked up a lot more steam after investigators discovered that several of the September 11th terrorists had over stayed their visas and had been in the country illegally.

In 2004 the first systems were put in place at San Francisco International requiring foreign visitors to pass through face and fingerprint screening as they left the country. Officials said it would help identify those who were overstaying their visas.

Mike McCarron, SFO Spokesperson: "I.N.S. and Customs have had trouble tracking these people, so now we can have a better record of whose leaving the country and compare it with whose entering the country."

Back then it was only airports that had the U.S. visit system. But Homeland Security said the system would be installed at 50 of the largest border crossings by next December.

In the past three years $1.7 billion dollars has been allocated for the program. But this week Homeland Security announced it would take tens of billions more and so the agency is suspending the exit program indefinitely.

Senator Dianne Feinstein is about to become the next chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "We'll have hearings we'll take a good look at the issue this is a serious problem."

Senator Feinstein wants to know why the U.S. can check people coming into the country but can't check them leaving.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "This is done in many different places and it seems to be to be a kind of no brainer but perhaps that's the wrong thing to say."

Feinstein is promising an investigation. But immigrant rights attorney Mark Silverman says the government is making the right choice.

Mark Silverman, The Immigrant Legal Resource Center: "It's a real world and we have a finite number of resources and I think this is not a good use of resources given the pattern of entry and exit of persons who have wanted to do us harm."

Silverman says the money would be better spent checking shipping containers. Senator Feinstein says if the governments of other counties can keep track of whose coming and going why can't the U.S. and Feinstein will soon have the power to conduct a senate hearing to find out.