The United States and Chile signed a new Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program (BITMAP) letter of intent to affirm their commitment to information sharing.
“Data sharing benefits everyone – except bad actors who wish to do us and our people harm,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. She explained that the department “kick-started a Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program (BITMAP) to help both nations better track criminals, terrorists, other dangerous individuals who try to cross our borders and do us harm. America, Chile, and the entire western hemisphere will be safer because of these efforts.”
According to DHS, the BITMAP is a “bridge” for the two countries. Once the program is operational, the countries will “enjoy increased cooperation in identifying and tracking transnational criminals, terrorists, and other high-risk individuals who are attempting to enter American borders,” the agency said. The program will further allow Chilean officials to vet prisoners.
Members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have increased their presence in Chile in recent years.
The gang has been labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration. The group’s campaigns of “violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” Trump’s January executive order on the matter read. Tren de Aragua’s operations both “within and outside” of the nation are considered an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the order said.
