February 27, 2002
State Department Issues Regulations Concerning Increased Criminal History
Screening
The recently passed USA Patriot Act requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation
("FBI") to give the U.S. State Department ("State Department") access to
certain criminal history record and other databases maintained and controlled
by the FBI.
On February 25, 2002, the State Department issued an interim final rule
regarding its new procedures for obtaining and using criminal history information
from the FBI for immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applications.
The interim final rule amends the State Department regulations regarding
fingerprinting and establishes regulations to control the use, protection,
dissemination, and destruction of any of the records provided to the State
Department by the FBI.
The State Department will now have access, through its automated Lookout
database, to criminal history record extracts from the FBI’s National Crime
Information Center ("NCIC"). All visa applicants and applicants to admission
to the U.S. will be subject to name-check queries against the extract information
in order to determine if the applicant may have a criminal history or other
record.
If the extract information indicates that an applicant may have a criminal
history, the State Department will require the applicant to submit fingerprints
and pay the $25.00 fingerprint processing fee. The State Department will
then send the fingerprints to the FBI for purposes of verifying that the
information shown in the extract matches the applicant in question. Once
the identification is confirmed, the FBI will forward to the State Department
the full content criminal history record.
This criminal history information is considered law enforcement sensitive
and is subject to conditions for its use and procedures for its destruction.
Therefore, the interim final rule requires the State Department to: 1) limit
the re-dissemination of the information, 2) use the information solely to
determine whether or not to issue a visa to an alien or to admit the alien
to the U.S., 3) ensure the security, confidentiality and destruction of
such information, and 4) protect the privacy rights of individuals who have
NCIC criminal history records.
Complete interim rule (PDF/60 kb, 6 pages)
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