NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Canadians are not exempt from tough new U.S. screening rules at the border, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday.

But Ashcroft did repeat promises that Canadians crossing into the U.S. won’t automatically be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed based on their place of birth. And he insisted the new U.S. exit and entry system, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), does not amount to ethnic profiling.

“No nation is exempt from NSEERS,” says Ashcroft. “It is not racial profiling. It is based on intelligence data and the list of nations provided from the state sponsors of terrorism.”

Under NSEERS, any traveler designated by a U.S. border official is fingerprinted and matched against a database of known criminals and terrorists. Those considered to pose a higher risk are also required to periodically confirm where they are living, what they are doing and confirm their exit from the country.