On April 27, 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced the elimination of the list of countries whose nationals have been subject to registration under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (“NSEERS”), effectively ending the NSEERS registration process through the publication of a notice in the Federal Register.

NSEERS was first implemented in 2002 as a temporary measure in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and was designed to record the arrival, stay, and departure of certain individuals from countries chosen based on an analysis of possible national security threats. For further information regarding the history of NSEERS, please refer to my NSEERS article.

According to the DHS notice, the NSEERS registration required approximately 30 minutes in secondary inspection, per person, per arrival. NSEERS registrants were also required to register upon departure at one of the 118 designated ports of departure, limiting travel flexibility. It was possible for frequent travellers to seek a one-year waiver of NSEERS requirements but the process was discretionary and inconvenient.

According to the recent DHS notice, it has since implemented several automated systems that capture arrival and/or exit information, making the manual entry of this data via the NSEERS registration process redundant, inefficient and unnecessary. Improved and expanded DHS and Department of State systems now apparently capture the same information for visitors, regardless of nationality.

For this reason, the NSEERS program is being discontinued. However, because the Secretary of Homeland Security’s authority under the NSEERS regulations is broader than the manual information flow based on country designation that has now ended, the underlying NSEERS regulation will remain in place in the event a special registration program is again needed.