I believe that you are wrong. I just posted the link above. Go to the biometric section. There are clearly parts of it that apply to everyone traveling through a certain location-regardless of immigration status.
There’s the biometric entry-exit system, but that was already passed as law in 2004.
Biometrics in the case of the 2004 law doesn’t mean anyone gets a chip implant, or a DNA screen; facial recognition requirements of Real ID already contains the biometrics required by the 2004 law. The government already monitors your coming and going, but it doesn’t do what it was supposed to with that information: make sure aliens leave.
Like just about everything else in the Bush-era security regime, everything was enforced against patriotic Americans, and nothing was enforced against aliens.
The 2004 law directed the federal government to devise an entry-exit visa system, so we could track people who entered America on a supposedly temporary basis, but who never left. But whereas the feds LOVE infringing on the rights of its citizens, it loves even more bringing as many illegal aliens as it can to the U.S., so it ignored that part of the law.
This bill does nothing more than direct the federal government to devise that plan, provide cost estimates for implementing it, and run a trial program in three ports of entry. This should have been done in 2004, but Congress failed to include any mechanism to compel compliance.
So, keep in mind about the entry-exit system:
1) If you’re not traveling internationally, this law has nothing at all to do with you.
2) If you’re traveling internationally and you’re a U.S. citizen, this law doesn’t change anything having anything to do with you. You’re already in the biometric system, and this law does NOT add anything creepy or Revelation-y, like implanted chips or DNA scans.
3) If you’re an alien, this law only requires the government to study the costs and functioning of implementing a system it was already directed to implement in 2004, but failed to do so.
If anything, we should be angry that this law continues to give the feds license to ignore security laws already passed.
‘(1) not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, submit to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on Homeland Security and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives an implementation plan to establish a biometric exit data system to complete the integrated biometric entry and exit data system required under section 7208 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (8 U.S.C. 1365b),...
...DATA-MATCHING.—The biometric exit data system established under this section shall
1) match biometric information for an individual, regardless of nationality, citizenship, or immigration status, who is departing the United States against biometric data PREVIOUSLY provided to the United States Government by such individual for the purposes of international travel;
(2) leverage the infrastructure and databases of the CURRENT biometric entry and exit system established pursuant to section 7208 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (823 U.S.C. 1365b) for the purpose described in paragraph (1); and
(3) be interoperable with, and allow matching against, other Federal databases that—
(A) store biometrics of known or suspected terrorists; and
(B) identify visa holders who violate the terms of their visas.
(all forms of emphasis added.)
So again:
(1) No new data is collected;
(2) the data that already has been collected (that is, to emphasize (1), the ONLY data collected) comes only from international travel.
(3)This only creates a plan to implement what was already ordered to be implemented.
And that's why I overlooked it at first; I was focused on the part that actually creates new law, which applies only to aliens. Professionally, I have little interest in Congress forcing the administration to do what the Trump administration is already inclined to do, and which law says they must do.