WASHINGTON, D.C. — Alabama Senator and immigration stalwart Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is pushing for an amendment to an airline-regulation bill that would create a new computer network to reveal whether tourists, guest-workers and other legal visitors have properly gone home once their visas expire.

Some experts calculate that 40 percent of the 11 to 13 million illegal immigrants living in the United States arrived legally, but did not leave when their visas expired. According to federal data in 2015, roughly 500,000 foreigners overstayed their visas.

Congress has mandated a “biometric entrance-exit” system for years, but the “exit” portion is still not operational. Sessions wants to ensure that the exit portion is finally put into effect.

The program currently in place works by taking digital facial images and 10 fingerprints at air ports of entry and consular offices abroad of foreign nationals seeking admission into the United States. Biometrics also have become a foundation for intelligence and law enforcement investigations within the United States. The biometric facial images and fingerprints taken at ports of entry are queried an average of 30,000 times every day by authorized federal, state, and local government users.

The United States also shares some of this data with international partners such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to help apprehend international criminals and terrorists who have been caught trying to change their names and other biographic information in an attempt to find safe haven in the United States or one of these international partners.

The Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest stated in a memo that Sessions’ amendment would alleviate a major problem in the implementation of the biometric entry-exit system at the nation’s airports: the assistance of the airline industry. Potential airline objections were diminished with a revenue-securing provision included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016.

The Alabama Senator’s amendment is different from prior legislation for the entry-exit system, according to the subcommittee, because it is a mandate for cooperation with the airports and airlines.

“Specifically, the amendment would provide that no funds from the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act may be obligated or expended ‘for the physical modification of any existing air navigation facility that is a port of entry, or for the construction of a new air navigation facility intended to be a port of entry, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the owner or sponsor of the facility has entered into an agreement that guarantees the installation and implementation of the [biometric exit system] at such facility not later than two years after the date of enactment of the Act,’” the subcommittee memo reads.

The Sessions approach ensures that that the space for Customs and Border Protection’s biometric exit efforts are airport-specific and not “a one-size-fits-all” approach, said the memo.

Sessions has long been a supporter of tough immigration policies and ‘fair trade’. His policy positions have created a strong political alliance with GOP front-runner Donald Trump. In March, Trump named Sessions the head of his national security team.

(h/t Breitbart: Sen. Jeff Sessions Pushes To Block Illegal Immigration Via Airports)