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Phoenix, Arizona. A program that began during the administration of former President George W. Bush, and intended to
check the immigration status of practically all individuals who are booked into local jails, is being expanded by President
Barack Obama. The measure would represent a huge increase in the number of potential deportations of undocumented
immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.
An increasing number of local authorities will match fingerprints of inmates under their custody against federal
immigration agencies data, to detect those who lack legal status and to place them in deportation procedures prior to their
release. While inmates from federal and state prisons are already subject to this procedure, federal immigration
authorities don’t have the resources to screen inmates at local-level jails.
Inmates who are incarcerated in city or county jails –for instance– are processed more quickly than those in Federal and
State detention facilities, which could mean that some individuals suspected of being in the country without the proper
documentation may be released before they can face deportation.
Both the Obama administration and Democratic officials are vowing to concentrate deportation efforts on people who have
committed crimes and lack legal status, versus those who are in the country without legal documents but are law-abiding
individuals.
Former Arizona governor and current Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have indicated that a top priority of her
office is to deport those undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. House subcommittee officials are
pushing an agenda to remove undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes after they complete their sentence’s term in
the United States.
The program began as a pilot in October of 2008 and is currently being operated in nearly 50 counties throughout the U.S.
In 2009, the plan is to screen the fingerprints of 1 million individuals who are booked in local jails, in cities like Phoenix,
Arizona; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Boston, Massachusetts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) officials have indicated the program will be expanded to cities like Los Angeles, California, in 2009, and to virtually
every local jail in the nation by 2012.
According to a January 8, 2009 press release by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO,) an Arizona local law
enforcement agency in charge of several county jails, “in the (county) jails since April 2007, over 20,500 inmates have
been identified as illegal aliens and processed for deportation.”
This plan is different than the 287(g) agreements between ICE and local law enforcement agencies, where police officers
and deputies have been delegated authority and received training to question individuals suspected of being in the country
illegally.
The plan to screen the fingerprints of undocumented convicted criminals to avoid their release and place them on
deportation procedures will be done automatically. Fingerprint databases from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
will be compared against the Department of Homeland Security’s databases. This matching procedure will detect only
people who have been previously fingerprinted by authorities throughout the country.
An estimate indicates that if the fingerprints of 14 million individuals booked in to local jails every year are screened, about
10 percent -1.4 million- will come back as being of undocumented immigrants. This figure would represent an increase of
10 times the current number of undocumented immigrants convicted of a crime that were deported by ICE last year. The
number of local jails in the U.S. is three times more than the number of federal and state prisons combined, which means
more undocumented inmates would be detected at the local level.
Secure Communities, A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens, as the program is deemed, has a
three-fold method to accomplish its purpose: “Identify criminal aliens through modernized information sharing,” “Prioritize
enforcement actions to ensure apprehension and removal of dangerous criminal aliens,” and “Transform criminal alien
enforcement processes and systems to achieve lasting results.”
Congress has allocated $1.4 billion for this type of enforcement. President Obama’s proposed budget for 2010 is asking
Congress for $200 million for this program. It is estimated that it would cost $3 billion to remove all criminal
undocumented immigrants.
Supposedly, ICE’s priority will be to deport those individuals categorized as the most dangerous offenders, like those who
pose a risk to national security or those who are convicted of committing violent crimes. Opponents to the plan believe that
even deporting the worst undocumented immigrant criminals won’t be realistically effective, since this plan doesn’t
address the estimated 11 million of immigrants who lack legal status and are already living in the United States.
Copyright © 2009 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
www.barriozona.com
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ICE's "Secure Communities" would potentially deport ten times more convicted inmates..
By Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
May 19, 2009
Obama Expands Program that Screens Undocumented
Inmates in Local Jails Across the Country