US senators approve immigration changes requiring fingerprint system at 30 airports

Every foreigner leaving America from any of the country's 30 busiest airports will have to undergo mandatory fingerprinting under an amendment senators have added to a new immigration bill.

Lawmakers called it a step towards a more expansive biometric system that would use identifiers such as fingerprints to keep track of immigrants and visitors exiting the U.S.

Currently no such system is in place, something viewed as a security weakness, particularly because some 40 percent of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally overstayed their visas and there is no system for tracking them.

According to CBS News, under Hatch's amendment, the nation's 10 busiest airports would have to establish a fingerprinting system within two years after enactment of the immigration bill.

Within six years it would have to be in place at the 30 busiest airports.