Although foreign governments expressed understanding, a US travel organization said the new restrictions could limit trips to America just as the number of foreign visitors was returning to the levels before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The changes in the US-VISIT program will take effect by Sept. 30. Travelers from the 27 countries will be fingerprinted and photographed each time they enter the United States through any of 115 international airports and 14 seaports. The program will be expanded later to border crossings.
Citizens from those countries still will not have to go through the consulate interviews and background checks that people from other nations must complete to obtain visas.
There are no changes in unique rules covering visits by Canadians and Mexicans.
The 27 countries are Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
The Bush administration made the move after determining that most of the so-called visa-waiver countries will not meet an October deadline to have biometric passports, said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security. Such passports include fingerprint and iris identification features that make the documents virtually impossible to counterfeit. US passports have not been upgraded with the features yet, either.
Hutchinson said the change will enhance security while ensuring that law-abiding visitors are not subjected to lengthy secondary screenings at the border.
But he also said the decision was based on intelligence that "terrorists would look to programs such as the visa-waiver program to exploit because of fewer security checks."
The US-VISIT program was passed by Congress in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. In January, the government began fingerprinting and photographing visitors from nations other than the visa-waiver countries.
About 2.6 million people have been processed and more than 200 with prior or suspected criminal or immigration violations have been stopped, according to the Department Homeland Security.
