Description
With the increasing influx of migration, much could be done with migration services to assist people who are planning to migrate, including assisting them in gathering the official needed evidence required to qualify for asylum. Similar tools like iris scanning could help uniquely identify people while in their countries of origin and building the unique electronic case for asylum prior to making the extraordinary trip to the US. These same tools can also assist families in tracking their loved ones and interacting with them while in-route to the US or waiting for an asylum hearing in the US. Biometric indicators like an iris scan that uniquely identify an individual and that can be easily obtained in the original countries, as well as being the security and privacy key to developing the asylum package which could make the asylum process far more efficient and secure. Based on the review of literature work on the causes of exodus of people from countries such as Honduras and El Salvador, the authenticity of the eye iris as a way of individual identification, and the current applications of the iris biometric recognition technology in the US and other countries, the analysis shows that the increasing poverty and extreme violence generated by gang members and criminals (belonging to the Mara Salvatrucha or the18 Street gang) are generally credited with being the two main causes for people abandoning these countries, that the iris is the most unique way of identifying an individual, and that in the US iris recognition is currently implemented by many governmental and non-governmental facilities, demonstrating its acceptance. Therefore, using such biometric tools could help avoid multiple risks throughout the entire asylum process, and greatly assisting US Immigration officials by electronically constructing the asylum packages for each person applying for asylum protection. On this basis, a program proposal such as the iRespond is recommended to be implemented in the US. Further research and collaboration are needed to identify other factors that could strengthen the effectiveness of the same.
