WA: FBI shares fingerprint database to ID illegal immigrants in Whatcom County Jail
MANUEL VALDES; ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 04/04/12 3:00 pm
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SEATTLE — A federal program that uses fingerprint analysis to identify illegal immigrants in county jails, including Whatcom County, was activated Tuesday, April 3, ahead of the 2013 nationwide rollout, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Washington and Montana now join another 32 states where the program, known as Secure Communities, has gone live statewide. More than 80 percent of the 3,181 jurisdictions needed to go national are now active, according to ICE.
“The nationwide rollout is happening and has been happening,” said Andre Munoz, an ICE spokesman in Seattle. “The goal is to have nationwide activation no later than the end of 2013.”
All counties in Washington send fingerprints of people booked in county jail to the FBI. Under Secure Communities, the FBI shares those fingerprints with ICE. People who come up as flagged for immigration violations are then held in the jail until ICE officers arrive.
Last year, Secure Communities faced opposition from immigrant rights groups and the governors of Massachusetts, Illinois and New York. Immigrant right groups say Secure Communities can discourage immigrants from reporting crimes and can lead to the deportation of people who haven’t been convicted of anything.
Eventually, the program was tweaked. ICE changed the program’s guidelines to address some concerns. A new policy directs ICE officers and attorneys to use appropriate discretion to make sure victims and witnesses to crimes are not put into deportation proceedings.
But immigrant advocates still say the program is flawed.
“There has been no public announcement, of course, but this is par for the course for this flawed program that has been shrouded in secrecy and misinformation since its inception,” Jorge Baron of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project wrote to the group’s supporters.
Secure Communities “is a program that in effect turns local law enforcement into immigration agents and furthers the dangerous notion that immigrants are criminals,” he wrote.
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FBI shares fingerprint database to ID illegal immigrants in Whatcom County Jail | Bellingham Herald - The News Tribune
