Darya B. Nachinkina ’04, who returned from her home in Moscow just two days after the US VISIT program became active, said she passed through customs faster than usual.

“I was honestly impressed by the efficiency of the U.S. officers,” she said.

Even so, Nachinkina said she thought the costs of the new program would exceed its benefits—and damage American international relations.

“I feel like the new procedures are somewhat excessive, considering the number of checks on foreigners already in place,” she said. “I think that [they] won’t enhance U.S. security, but they could create backlash from foreign countries.”

Other students were expecting more difficulty from the system than they actually encountered.

“I ran into an international student at Quincy, and he was rather disappointed,” Ladd said. “He had gotten himself all keyed up for the fingerprinting and then there was nothing.”

Ladd plans to meet with a small focus group of undergraduates this week to discuss their experiences with the new program and to determine whether a special response is necessary.

The higher education community has also not yet taken a stance on US VISIT.

And Senior Director of Federal and State Relations Kevin Casey, who represents Harvard in Washington, said he doesn’t expect the program to receive the full brunt of educators’ attention because it pertains to a much broader group than students alone.

His own lobbying over the past year has focused on recent facets of national security affecting international students more directly—such as last year’s implementation of SEVIS, a controversial student information database, he said.

A pilot version of US VISIT has been operating in Atlanta since November. Officials report that the trial program already prevented several passengers with criminal records from entering the country.

Brazil, whose leaders have publicly protested US VISIT, has announced plans to fingerprint all U.S. citizens entering its borders in response to the new system.

—Staff writer Nathan J. Heller can be reached at heller@fas.harvard.edu.