Silicon Valley jumps into biometric gold rush for Trump's 'other border wall'

HOUSTON – An arriving passenger uses a biometric scanner at George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport February 1, 2008 in Houston, Texas. Under President Donald Trump, technology companies have started cashing in on a little-noticed government push to ramp up the use of biometric tools -- such as fingerprinting and iris scanners -- to track people who enter and exit the country. Silicon Valley firms that specialize in data collection are taking advantage of a provision tucked into Mr. Trump's executive order on immigration, which included his controversial travel ban, that called for the completion of a "Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System" for screening travelers entering and leaving the United States. The tracking system was mandated in a 1996 immigration law passed by Congress but never fully implemented by Trump's past three predecessors. In Trump's first months in office, federal courts blocked the sections of his original and revised immigration orders that called for a temporary travel ban on visitors from seven majority Muslim countries.