Emergency Memo

October 14, 2022
TO:

Dominic Mancini, Deputy Administrator
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Eric Hysen
ERIC N ERIC N HYSEN
Date: 2022.10.17
Chief Information Officer
HYSEN
13:27:22 -04'00'
Department of Homeland Security
signed by
MATTHEW S Digitally
MATTHEW S DAVIES
Date: 2022.10.14
FROM:
Matthew S. Davies DAVIES
17:09:09 -04'00'
Executive Director, Admissibility & Passenger Programs
U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Digitally signed by

SUBJECT:

Emergency Approval Request for Advance Travel Authorization Capability under
the Paperwork Reduction Act

This memorandum requests an emergency approval to implement a new collection of
information under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) for U.S. Customs and Border
Protection’s (CBP) Advance Travel Authorization (ATA) capability to collect certain
information, including photographs, in advance of travel. CBP currently collects photographs of
individuals as part of the inspection process at the time of encounter.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working with its interagency partners to allow
certain noncitizens from Venezuela, and their qualifying immediate family members 1, who lack
United States entry documents to submit information through the newly developed CBP ATA
capability within the CBP OneTM application as part of the process to request an advance
authorization to travel to the United States to seek parole. Implementation of ATA will require
the collection of a facial photograph via CBP One™. Participation will be limited to those
individuals who meet certain DHS established criteria, including possession of a valid, unexpired
passport, as well as having an approved U.S.-based supporter. Pending Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) approval, this functionality may launch as early as October 12, 2022.

Immediate family members include spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21. Eligible family members
must travel with the principal noncitizen to be processed under an ATA program upon arrival in the United States.
Unaccompanied children are not eligible for this process.

1

The United States is currently encountering a large number of undocumented noncitizens at the
Southwest Border (SWB) of the United States where, despite surging resources and personnel,
CBP is facing significant and unprecedented challenges processing such individuals in a timely
manner.
The most recent rise in the numbers of encounters at the border have been driven in significant
part by a surge in migration of Venezuelan nationals. Unique encounters of Venezuelan
nationals increased throughout fiscal year (FY) 2021, totaling 47,328. They increased again by
almost four-fold in FY 2022, to an estimated 186,000 unique encounters—comprising 11 percent
of all unique encounters in FY 2022. Average monthly unique encounters of Venezuelan
nationals at the land border totaled 15,494 in FY 2022, compared to a monthly average of 127
unique encounters from FY 2014–2019. 2 Of note, unique encounters of Venezuelan nationals
rose 293 percent between FY 2021 and FY 2022, while unique encounters of all other
nationalities combined increased 45 percent.
In recent months, this surge in irregular migration of Venezuelan nationals has been accelerating.
Nationals from Venezuela accounted for 25,130 unique encounters in August 2022, and the
Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) estimates that there were 33,500 unique encounters in
September, more than Mexico and more than all three Northern Central American countries
combined. 3
There are significant limits in DHS’s ability to expel or return Venezuelans who enter the United
States without authorization in between POEs. DHS is currently under a court-ordered
obligation to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Title 42 public
health Order, under which covered noncitizens may be prevented entry or expelled to prevent the
spread of communicable disease. 4 But Venezuela does not allow repatriations via charter flights,
which significantly limits DHS’s ability to return those subject to the Title 42 Order or who are
ordered removed. To date, other countries, including Mexico, have generally failed to accept
Venezuelans as well. As a result, DHS was only able to repatriate 22 Venezuelan nationals to
Venezuela in FY 2022.
CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) is developing the ATA capability, a new functionality
in CBP One™, which will collect a facial photograph and biographic information from a
noncitizen who is submitting information to request an advance authorization to travel to the
United States to seek a discretionary grant of parole on a case-by-case basis. This information
will be provided to CBP.
The facial photograph collected from the noncitizens will be linked to biographic information
provided by the individual to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). CBP will
OIS analysis of OIS Persist Dataset based on data through August 31, 2022 and OIS analysis of U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) data from Unified Immigration Portal (UIP) as of October 6, 2022. Unique encounters
include encounters of persons at the Southwest Border who were not previously encountered in the prior 12 months.
Throughout this memo unique encounter data are defined to also include OFO parolees and other OFO
administrative encounters.
3
OIS Persist Dataset based on data through August 31, 2022 and OIS analysis of CBP UIP data as of October 6,
2022.
4
Louisiana v. CDC, -- F. Supp. 3d --, 2022 WL 1604901 (W.D. La. May 20, 2022).
2

conduct vetting of noncitizens using the biographic information provided to CBP by USCIS and
the facial photograph collected by CBP via CBP One™. This information collection will
facilitate the vetting of noncitizens seeking to obtain advance authorization to travel and give air
carriers that participate in CBP’s document validation program the ability to validate an
approved travel authorization, facilitating generation of a noncitizen’s boarding pass without
having to use other manual validation processes.
CBP One™ allows the user to capture their image and confirm submission after viewing the
captured image. If the user is not satisfied with the image captured, the user can retake the
image. A user can retake the image up to three times. If after three attempts CBP One™ cannot
successfully capture the user’s image, CBP One™ will provide the user an error message
notifying them that their submission was unable to be completed and that they can access the
capability and try again. If the user continues to experience technical difficulties, the CBP
One™ application provides a help desk email to provide assistance. In the event that the user is
not authorized to travel under this process, they may still seek entry through another process,
including by filing a request for consideration of parole with USCIS or applying with the
Department of State (DOS) to obtain a visa.
Once submitted, CBP will vet available biographic information and the facial photograph against
selected security and law enforcement databases at DHS and other federal agencies, for national
security, border security, public health, and safety. DHS will limit use and sharing of the
photograph to what is strictly necessary to perform this vetting. Any potential travel
authorization denials resulting from facial photograph matches against these databases or
mismatches to confirm identity will be verified by a CBP officer before the travel authorization
is denied. DHS will retain the facial photograph for the duration of the travel authorization
validity but no more than 180 days and ensure that it is deleted from all DHS and other agency
databases after that time unless the photograph matches against national security or law
enforcement databases, as verified by CBP personnel. CBP conducts this vetting to determine
whether the individual poses a security risk to the United States, and to determine whether the
individual is eligible to receive advance authorization to travel to the United States to seek
parole. If the travel authorization is denied, the individual will not be authorized to travel to the
United States to seek parole under this process. If approved, the approval establishes that the
individual has obtained advance authorization to travel to the United States to seek parole,
consistent with 8 C.F.R. 212.5(f), but does not guarantee boarding or a specific processing
disposition at a POE. Upon arrival to a United States POE, the traveler will be subject to
inspection by a CBP officer, who will make a case-by-case processing disposition determination.
DHS requests an emergency approval to implement new data collection in CBP One™ to allow
CBP to collect a facial photograph in advance to permit individuals to obtain advance
authorization to travel to the United States to seek a discretionary grant of parole. The
information will allow DHS to vet noncitizens who may otherwise present themselves for
inspection at a southwest land border POE, or enter the United States between POEs, without
any prior vetting. The advance vetting affords the noncitizen the opportunity to book
international travel to arrive near their intended United States destination address and, as a result,
is expected to reduce the strain on CBP resources at the southwest land border. Data will be
collected on the efficacy of this process in achieving the desired outcomes, to include reduction

in southwest land border encounters, identifying derogatory information before individuals
travel, increased arrivals to final destination and grants of parole, and access to employment
authorization as well as assessment of the efficacy of automated facial matching, including by
demographic group, in order to assess whether this emergency measure has been effective.
Development and deployment of this ATA capability has been expedited to facilitate DHS’
ability to respond to the current U.S. Government (USG) resource strain along the SWB, and to
enable certain individuals, based on urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, to
travel to the United States to seek a discretionary grant of parole at the POE. This process may
also ease the burden on certain locations outside the United States that are unable to continue to
support the influx of these migrants because of already overburdened humanitarian relief
mechanisms.
DHS is requesting an emergency information collection under 5 CFR 1320.13, with the intention
of carrying out all the regular requirements for publication and review after implementation.
This collection of information is needed prior to the expiration of time periods established under
the normal PRA notice and comment process and is essential to the mission of the agency.
Further, the agency cannot reasonably comply with the normal clearance procedures under this
part because delayed implementation and awareness of DHS’ intent would likely have
unpredictable impact on the movement and may further raise pressure on U.S. border operations
and the migration management conducted by our foreign partners and could jeopardize our
relations with foreign partners.
After implementation of the new data element collection, CBP will undergo the normal PRA
renewal process. After publication of the two Federal Register Notices (FRNs) required under
the PRA, DHS will address comments and concerns as necessary under the PRA and submit the
ICR to OMB for renewal within the required timeframe.
Thank you for your consideration of this Emergency Request.