Immigration officers have the nearly impossible job of keeping terrorists , foreign spies, and others who threaten our national security from entering the country. It’s the challenge of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack of international tourism, business travel, and family visits.

One tool that could help them is access to data collected by the nation’s intelligence agencies. If an immigration officer knows that a visiting Chinese student has emailed with Ministry of State Security officers, or that a Lebanese businessman is in a group chat with Hezbollah , that information can be used to block those people from entering the United States.

A new bipartisan bill from the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as recommendations from a House Intelligence Committee working group, would provide exactly those tools without implicating the privacy of any American. Section 702 of FISA, which is up for renewal before the end of the year, gives intelligence agencies the power to target the communications of foreigners overseas. The targets can be terrorists and foreign spies, but not Americans.

The information collected under Section 702 is immensely valuable. The CIA recently used Section 702 to stop advanced weapons shipments to Iran , and according to the House working group, nearly 60% of the intelligence in the president’s daily brief comes from 702 collection.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has produced a reform bill that would protect Americans’ privacy while using Section 702 data to evaluate foreigners applying for travel to the United States. Without doubt, we should know before issuing a visa whether the applicant is in touch with a foreign terrorist organization or intelligence agency. And because only foreigners need such visas, the provision does not affect the rights of Americans.

If anything, the Senate Intelligence Committee should have adopted a House proposal to use 702 data to vet asylum applicants as well. Asylum-seekers are not American citizens. But millions have entered the U.S. illegally in recent years, typically with no notice and no advance vetting. The Senate bill would be even more valuable if it clarified that this population should not become immune from vetting simply by wading across the border.

Just as important is the intelligence committees’ provision ensuring that Section 702 can be used to track foreign drug cartels and fentanyl threats. Section 702 has been used against cartels in certain circumstances , but unambiguous authority is needed for intelligence agencies to fully turn their attention toward a threat that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. And just as with immigration vetting, the proposal would only allow the targeting of drug gangs overseas, where they have no claim to constitutional protection.

These proposals to expand Section 702 have already been met with a chorus of objections from left-wing activists. Because the program originated as part of the post-9/11 response, groups such as Demand Progress and the Brennan Center reflexively attack any use of 702, no matter how great the national security value or how modest the impact on Americans’ privacy.

As we’ve written before , FISA and the culture of the U.S. intelligence community need to address problems laid bare by the partisan abuses of the recent past. The Carter Page and Mike Flynn episodes demonstrated that surveillance tools such as FISA are at the greatest risk of abuse when they can be used to affect domestic politics. Those situations require the strictest safeguards and most intense scrutiny, but targets such as foreign drug cartels do not.

The intelligence committees have proposed meaningful changes that are targeted to the kinds of surveillance most at risk of abuse, including greater accountability and compliance requirements at the FBI and improved transparency at the specialized FISA court. Along with those reforms, Section 702 can also be used to help secure our border and stop foreign drug cartels with virtually no risk to Americans’ privacy.

Congress shouldn’t miss this opportunity.

Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer, has held multiple national security positions in government, including general counsel of the National Security Agency in 1992-94. Michael Ellis has served in senior positions in Congress, the White House, and the intelligence community, including as senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council staff.