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.

FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, on Wednesday introduced a bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security to take biometric data, including DNA, from migrants coming across the border as part of an effort to crack down on fraud and child trafficking. The Biometric Verification for Entry and Reconfirming Identity with Forensics Act or ''B–VERIFY Act" would require DHS to collect biometric information from any foreign national seeking entry into the U.S., or apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and when seeking an immigration benefit. "Criminal cartels are exploiting children to help migrants illegally cross our southern border, terrorists and known criminals have entered the United States, and the Biden Administration is doing nothing to stop it," Gooden said in a statement. "Congress must act now to give law enforcement the tools they need to protect our national security and migrant children from human trafficking." Additionally, the bill ensures ...

Fox News' Bill Melugin reports from Eagle Pass, Texas, where'several hundred' crossings were observed Wednesday morning. Border Patrol agents in just one sector of the southern border have apprehended hundreds of illegal immigrants posing as unaccompanied children in order to gain entry to the United States. El Paso Sector, which has been ramping up its technology and processing capabilities to identify those coming across the border, said in a release that it recently identified 10 adults posing as minors -- amid hundreds of such encounters this fiscal year. In one instance, three adults aged between 21 and 22, were encountered with one adult and nine unaccompanied minors. Their identities were revealed at the El Paso Sector Processing Center when they tried to use forged documents.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is trialing a new facial recognition technology at US borders aimed at keeping track of people as the enter and exit the country. Called the Vehicle Face System, the project is being spearheaded by Customs and Border Protection at the Anzalduas Border Crossing, located at the southern tip of Texas, in August, according to the Verge. Sophisticated cameras will take photos of people arriving and departing the US and match them with government documents like visas and passports. The cameras are expected to remain in operation at the crossing for a full year. A customs spokesperson told the Verge that the purpose of the project will be to'evaluate capturing facial biometrics of travelers entering and departing the US and compare those images to photos on file in government holdings'.

The US government is deploying a new facial recognition system at the southern border that would record images of people inside vehicles entering and leaving the country. The pilot program, scheduled to begin in August, will build on secretive tests conducted in Arizona and Texas during which authorities collected a "massive amount of data", including images captured "as people were leaving work, picking up children from school, and carrying out other daily routines", according to government records. The project, which US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to the Guardian on Tuesday, sparked immediate criticisms from civil liberties advocates who said there were a host of privacy and constitutional concerns with an overly broad surveillance system relying on questionable technology. Already the largest and most funded federal law enforcement agency in its own right, the border patrol is part of the umbrella agency US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP's approximately 60,000 employees are split in four major divisions: officers who inspect imports; an air and marine division; agents who staff ports of entry – international airports, seaports and land crossings; and the approximately 20,000 agents of the border patrol, who are concentrated in the south-west, but stationed nationwide.