Breaking News: Fingerprints and photos upon admission

On time for September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the US are tightening their admission regulations. Nationals of certain Muslim countries and persons who look suspicious will from now on only be admitted into the country after their identity has been meticulously documented.
For thousands of people who want to visit the US, admission will be quite tough from now on. All passengers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, Syria or other countries that are felt to be a national threat to the US will be closely examined in the future. Furthermore, this may also affect anyone else who meets certain (unpublished) criteria. For this purpose, officers of US immigration will be having a close look at people at the airport entrances. Only after fingerprints and photos have been taken will people be admitted into the country.

The tourists data will be compared to that of serious offenders and known terrorists. The project will initially be started on September 11 for a 20-day test phase at certain airports that have not been disclosed so far. On October 1, the project will be extended to all US airports. A pilot project with a similar system had proved to be successful between January and July - 2000 wanted people could be caught thanks to the fingerprinting and photo-taking procedures.

This system is aimed at finding out who is entering the country and for what purpose, explains Bill Strassberger, spokesman of US immigration. "The terrorists were able to take advantage of what they perceived as weaknesses. Now we can make sure that nothing like that happens again." However, critics say that this system draws up a racist profile of people. Law specialist Carl Baron from Texas believes that significantly fewer people from the Middle East will be coming to the US from now on.

Anyway, all our customers in the green card lottery, even those from Arab countries, have no reason to worry - the green card lottery doesn't take stereotypes into account. This is a mere lottery procedure, only countries with too high immigration numbers are excluded. All Arab countries (except for Pakistan, which is only excluded due to its too high immigration numbers) can still participate in the green card lottery and will not be at a disadvantage.