Washington has put a price on visa-free travel: access to European biometric records.
By Dec. 31, countries in the Visa Waiver Program are expected to conclude Enhanced Border Security Partnership agreements with the United States or risk their continued participation in the program. The European Commission is negotiating because 24 of the EU’s 27 members depend on the program.
The demand comes from the Department of Homeland Security, whose most controversial agency already has a footprint across Europe. ICE’s international directory lists Homeland Security Investigations offices across the continent, from Athens and Berlin to Paris, Rome and Warsaw. ICE’s FY 2024 annual report counted 94 HSI offices in 56 countries worldwide.
The agents posted there belong to Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s criminal-investigative arm. They are not deportation officers. HSI pursues serious crimes that cross borders, but only European authorities can search homes or arrest suspects. The Americans work through local police and prosecutors to build cases.
In 2025, HSI joined Operation RapTor, a dark-web crackdown involving the United States and nine other countries. Authorities arrested 270 suspects and seized more than $200 million, two metric tons of drugs and more than 180 firearms.
An ICE agent in Europe is more likely to trace cryptocurrency or follow a fentanyl shipment than inspect residence papers at a railway station.
DHS now wants access on a scale no embassy office could match. Under the proposed Enhanced Border Security Partnership, American authorities could run automated biometric checks against databases selected by participating governments.
A match could return fingerprints, facial images and identifying information. Europe would retain the databases, and HSI would not receive unrestricted access. The European Commission’s negotiating proposal describes the framework as an information exchange for security screening and identity verification.
Both sides already collect biometrics from foreign travelers. The United States records biometric data from Europeans entering under the Visa Waiver Program, while Europe’s Entry/Exit System now takes fingerprints and facial images from Americans and other non-EU short-stay travelers.
The Enhanced Border Security Partnership would add access to national databases maintained by participating European governments.
Europe’s dispute with Washington comes as its own deportation policy hardens. Germany, Austria, Denmark, Greece and the Netherlands are negotiating facilities outside the bloc for migrants ordered to leave. Rwanda and Uganda have been reported as possible hosts.
The EU Return Regulation would permit people with no remaining right to stay to be sent to “return hubs” in third countries once the measure is formally adopted and enters into force.
ICE’s European role is neither rogue nor accidental. Criminal networks do not stop at national borders, and European governments want HSI’s help pursuing them. The biometric negotiations would deepen that cooperation with Washington, while the return-hub plans recognize that people with no remaining right to stay must ultimately be removed.
European politicians attack the ICE brand, but their governments are moving closer to its enforcement model. Europe does not want ICE out. It wants ICE out of sight.
