[2026020701-cbp]
The government document in question:
7 February 2026
To: CBP_PRA@cbp.dhs.gov
Subject: Public comment on OMB Control Number 1651-0111, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
To whom it may concern,
I am a semi-retired college professor, technologist, and writer with extensive travel experience in repressive nation states. As a United States citizen, I value and actively exercise the rights afforded me by the Constitution, notably freedom of expression, freedom of association, and an expansive right to privacy. These legal assurances are the standard by which I assess both authoritarian regimes abroad and the United States itself. I am not pleased when I see these categories blurring or overlapping. Accordingly, I object to certain provisions in document 2025-22461 (90 FR 57208), “Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision; Arrival and Departure Record (Form I-94) and Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)”. I will limit my remarks to two major issues: data-collection overreach and threats to free speech and respect for privacy.
The proposed biometric data collection – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris – is shocking and intrusive. Accustomed as we are to fingerprinting, I have not forgotten the criminal-justice origins of the practice. Mug shots are less offensive, although, as CBP and other police agencies make clear, photographs now primarily feed facial-recognition systems, which are quickly growing into a tool for general surveillance of whole populations that overwhelmingly consist not of criminal suspects but of law-abiding individuals. Far worse are DNA sampling and iris scans. Having my blood forcibly taken at the border of a foreign country is one of the more frightening experiences that I can imagine. DNA is information too private to be demanded by any government except in highly restricted circumstances. And I hardly know what to make of the dystopian suggestion of using iris scans, except to speculate that the authors of the proposed rules have watched too many spy thrillers. This is ludicrous overkill.
Note #1:
I am quite aware that the proposed rules are aimed at non-US-citizens entering the country, but this is cold comfort. The physical violations involved in the biometric methods are disproportionate and dehumanizing. To foreign visitors, they would reveal a United States that has grown paranoid, that can no longer distinguish between friends and enemies, that sees no value in opening itself to the rest of the world, and that exercises casual brutality toward people outside its border. As a matter of safety and of human dignity, I would actively discourage friends in foreign countries from visiting a United States that shows such a face to its neighbors.
On to my second point. The proposal would demand that visitors “provide their social media from the last 5 years”, as well as telephone numbers, email addresses, and a list of family members, including, most absurdly of all, the same degree of private and sensitive information about those people, who are unknowing third parties to this visa application from Hell. I am familiar with federal Standard Form 86, and it appears that the proposed rules for vetting foreign tourists rival or exceed what it takes for a US citizen to obtain a security clearance. CBP would effectively be telling visitors to doxx and interrogate themselves in order to save police work if they should ever in the future turn out to be criminals. I suggest instead that police agencies direct their considerable investigative skills toward persons subject to reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause for arrest. Treating whole populations like criminal suspects is the literal definition of a police state.
Note #2:
Yes, again, these are rules for foreigners. We Americans, among ourselves, respect privacy and freedom of opinion. Except when we don’t, in which case, trampling on the privacy of foreigners becomes a proof of concept, and banning them for political opinions about the current administration becomes a template for domestic harassment, by criminal or civil law, as retaliation for dissent. That line has already been crossed.
Consequently, I recommend against the adoption of foreign-entry rules which, if applied to US citizens, would be blatantly unconstitutional. As they stand, these rules threaten a gross betrayal of American political aspirations and a grave blow to our international repute.
Sincerely yours,
David W. Robinson, PhD
Seattle, Washington, USA