U.S. immigration authorities take your fingerprints to confirm you are who you say you are and to check whether you have a criminal history, prior immigration violations, or connections to terrorism. Names and birth dates can be shared by thousands of people or easily faked, but fingerprints are biologically unique. That makes them the most reliable way to link a person to a single, consistent identity across every interaction with the immigration system.
What Your Fingerprints Are Checked Against
When your fingerprints are scanned, they’re run against a massive federal biometric database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. This system, currently being upgraded from an older platform called IDENT to a newer one called HART, doesn’t just hold immigration records. It’s interconnected with the FBI’s fingerprint system, Department of Defense databases, and INTERPOL’s international criminal records. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies can all query and contribute to this network.
The checks search for a wide range of “derogatory information”: outstanding warrants, known or suspected terrorist designations, sex offender registrations, foreign criminal convictions, immigration violations, gang affiliations, prior deportations, and enforcement actions at U.S. borders. If your fingerprints match a record flagged for any of these, the officer is alerted within seconds, and the case gets escalated for closer scrutiny.
Your prints are also checked against the Terrorist Screening Dataset, which contains biometric and biographical information on known or suspected terrorists. Customs and Border Protection uses this dataset when vetting travelers seeking entry at ports of entry, during preclearance at foreign airports, and when processing trusted traveler applications like Global Entry.
Preventing Identity Fraud
One of the biggest reasons for fingerprinting is catching people who use multiple identities. A name on a passport can be legally obtained under false pretenses, and biographical details like birth dates can be altered. Fingerprints can’t. In one documented case at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, a man entered the U.S. as a Portuguese national using one identity and tried to leave as an Indian national using another. His fingerprints immediately linked both identities together. In another case, a woman’s fingerprints revealed she had previously been arrested and deported under a completely different name and date of birth.
This “identity fixing” function is especially important for immigration benefits. When someone applies for a visa, green card, asylum, or work permit, fingerprints ensure their application history follows them. A person who was previously denied a benefit or ordered removed can’t simply reapply under a new name. DHS considers this critical for preventing human smuggling and trafficking as well, since traffickers and smugglers frequently cycle through aliases.
Who Gets Fingerprinted and Who Doesn’t
Most noncitizens interacting with the U.S. immigration system are fingerprinted, but there are exceptions. Children under 14 and adults over 79 are generally exempt from fingerprint collection. These age-based exemptions exist partly because of historical technological limitations (very young and very old fingerprints are harder to capture reliably) and partly because of longstanding law enforcement policies around running criminal checks on children. However, facial photographs can now be collected from travelers of any age.
Diplomats and government officials traveling on A-1 or A-2 visas for official business are also exempt from fingerprinting as a class. But this exemption is narrow. If that same diplomat applies for a tourist visa instead, fingerprinting is required without exception. Applicants aged 80 and above are exempt from fingerprinting during the visa application process as well.
How Long the Data Is Kept
Your fingerprint data doesn’t disappear after your trip. DHS stores biometric information for 75 years from the last recorded action on your file. This retention period mirrors the schedule used for official immigration case files. That means if you entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in your twenties, your fingerprints will still be on file and matchable decades later.
International Data Sharing
The U.S. doesn’t operate its fingerprint database in isolation. It participates in a biometric data-sharing arrangement with four other countries: the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Known as the Migration 5, these nations have longstanding agreements to share immigration fingerprints with each other. If you’ve had an immigration encounter in any of these countries, your fingerprint records may already be accessible to U.S. authorities before you arrive. DHS can also query fingerprint holdings from additional foreign partners through international biometric information-sharing programs.
The Shift Toward Facial Recognition
While fingerprints remain central to immigration processing, the U.S. is increasingly layering in facial recognition technology. CBP has been expanding a biometric entry-exit program that uses facial images to verify travelers arriving and departing the country. This system adds another way to identify criminals, detect visa overstays, prevent fraudulent document use, and stop previously deported individuals from reentering. Unlike fingerprint collection, facial image collection has no age exemptions, meaning even young children can be photographed for biometric matching purposes.
Mobile biometric devices tested at airports have given officers the ability to run fingerprint and facial queries from a smartphone during inspections, producing results in seconds. In practice, this means an officer who suspects something during a routine check can verify identity on the spot rather than waiting to bring someone to a secondary inspection area.