Congress Reports Incomplete Implementation of 9/11 Commission Border Security Recommendations

<p>Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, the United States has not fully implemented a key border-security reform recommended by the 9/11 Commission. This finding comes from a bipartisan review released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.</p><p>The review indicates that the Commission's recommendation for a biometric entry-exit screening system to be established "as quickly as possible" remains incomplete. While air exit is nearly complete, sea exit and biometric land exit at both the northern and southern borders are still lacking. Biometric exit at the southern border is also incomplete and relies partially on re-entry data.</p><p>This issue is significant because the ability to track whether a foreign traveler has left the United States was identified as a problem during the investigation of the 9/11 plot. Nawaf al-Hazmi entered the United States in January 2000 after attending an al-Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Khalid al-Mihdhar. Both individuals later resided in California. By August 2001, U.S. authorities were attempting to locate them, but immigration officials reported that there was no record of Hazmi leaving the country after his entry.</p><p>The 9/11 Commission later determined that Hazmi had overstayed his authorized stay by nine months, while another hijacker, Satam al-Suqami, had overstayed by four months. These violations were not detected prior to the attacks. The Commission found that travel documents and patterns could have provided opportunities to intercept between four and 15 of the 19 hijackers, but the necessary information was not connected or acted upon in time.</p><p>One of the Commission's recommendations was for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with support from Congress, to complete a biometric entry-exit screening system. This recommendation, made in 2004, aimed to connect a person's identity to travel records and track their departure from the country.</p><p>Much of the envisioned system has been developed. Biometric screening is now complete for air entry, sea entry, and pedestrian land entry, according to the House report. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports that facial biometrics are utilized for entry at all international airports and for international departures at 57 airports.</p><p>The technology allows for comparison of a traveler at a checkpoint against government-held photographs, providing confirmation that the individual associated with the travel record is indeed the person entering or leaving. The system has yielded results; in an August 2026 final rule, DHS reported that facial biometric matching at exit confirmed over 516,000 overstays between June 2017 and October 2025, and CBP intercepted more than 2,200 impostors using facial biometrics at airports and pedestrian land crossings.</p><p>However, these numbers do not imply that hundreds of thousands of terrorists are entering the country, but they demonstrate the importance of confirming identity and departure.</p><p>The challenge remains why the system does not cover all exit methods from the United States. The U.S. has never had a comprehensive immigration exit-control system. International travelers can leave through various airline gates at airports, while land borders present a more complex infrastructure challenge. Thousands of vehicles can cross into Canada or Mexico daily, making it difficult to collect biometrics without causing significant delays.</p><p>This complexity explains some of the delay, but not all of it. Congress first directed the federal government to create an automated entry-exit system in 1996, five years before the 9/11 attacks. The system envisioned by Congress did not exist when Hazmi and Suqami overstayed their visas, a point emphasized by the 9/11 Commission.</p><p>Congress and successive administrations have revisited this issue multiple times since then. New laws have mandated integrated arrival and departure databases, biometric technology, and improved interoperability with law enforcement systems. In 2017, President Donald Trump instructed DHS to expedite the biometric entry-exit system recommended by the 9/11 Commission.</p><p>A significant development occurred in October 2025, when DHS finalized a rule requiring photographs from noncitizens entering and departing the U.S., removing previous limitations that restricted some biometric exit collection to pilot programs and specific ports. This rule took effect in December.</p><p>However, the legal authority to implement the system does not mean it is fully operational. In the same 2025 rule, CBP stated it was still determining the best approach for biometric exit at sea and land borders, as well as for private aircraft. The agency had not completed cost-benefit analyses for several of these environments as it was still deciding how the systems would function.</p><p>CBP estimated that a biometric entry-exit system could be fully implemented at commercial airports and seaports within three to five years. For vehicles and other land-border exits, the agency indicated it would continue studying and testing potential solutions.</p><p>The House Intelligence Committee is now advocating for a more comprehensive approach. Its report recommends that foreign nationals pass through control points when entering and departing the U.S. At land borders, the committee suggests that the system should direct departing foreign nationals through points where CBP can collect biometrics as much as practical.</p><p>This would require significant changes in traffic patterns, infrastructure, and staffing at some land crossings, as well as funding. DHS highlighted this funding issue shortly before the House report was released, stating that inadequate funding threatens both existing biometric operations and the continued implementation of entry and exit programs. The statutory fee currently supporting part of this work is set to expire in September 2027 unless Congress extends it.</p><p>It is crucial to note that a biometric system can confirm identity but cannot inform a border officer if an individual is connected to terrorist organizations unless the necessary intelligence has already been collected and entered into the screening systems.</p><p>The House Intelligence Committee emphasized this point, warning that screening and vetting depend heavily on foreign intelligence collection. If information about a terrorist suspect is not present in relevant databases, even a fully functioning biometric system has limited effectiveness.</p><p>A completed biometric exit system would not have independently prevented the 9/11 attacks, which involved failures in intelligence collection, information sharing, watchlisting, and analysis beyond immigration records. However, the inability to reliably determine whether certain individuals remained in the U.S. was one of those failures.</p><p>By August 2001, U.S. authorities had uncovered information indicating that Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles and that Mihdhar had recently returned to the U.S. Both were added to the TIPOFF watchlist on August 24, but a lead sent to the FBI's New York field office on August 28 was marked “Routine,” allowing 30 days for a response. This lead was sent just 14 days before September 11, and the search was initiated too late.</p><p>The U.S. has undergone significant changes since then, with improvements in intelligence sharing, expanded watchlisting, enhanced aviation security, and more sophisticated border screening where implemented. The House Intelligence Committee's review credits these reforms with helping to prevent another attack on the scale of 9/11 thus far.</p><p>However, the report also highlights that a fundamental recommendation remains unfulfilled. The government is now better equipped to know who enters the U.S., but the next step is to complete the system that ensures it knows who leaves.</p>