Thread: $2B plan would let feds track illegals in prison

$2B plan would let feds track illegals in prison
Dan Genz, The Examiner
2008-03-29 07:00:00.0


WASHINGTON -
The federal Department of Homeland Security announced an ambitious plan Friday costing more than $2 billion annually to link the FBI criminal fingerprint database with records tracking illegal immigrants.

Federal authorities said the plan, similar to one requested earlier this month by three Virginia lawmakers, would result in nearly 5,000 jails nationwide checking the legal status of inmates booked for local crimes.

"This comprehensive initiative aims to identify and remove all aliens convicted of a crime," said Julie Myers, the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Homeland Security assistant secretary for ICE.

For years, illegal immigrants booked for crimes in small, rural jails and urban facilities that do not have regular cooperation with ICE agents have been falling through the cracks and are not being screened or deported, Myers said.

"Folks feel like we're not making the effort to enforce existing laws," U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., one of three lawmakers to request a better link with existing databases told The Examiner. "If somebody is picked up on a violation, we want to be able to make sure of their legal status."

The chairman of a congressional panel that oversees ICE funding raised questions about the cost in a letter to Myers Thursday. But the chairman, Rep. David Price, D-N.C., spoke with her Friday and "is encouraged the agency is willing to work with Congress to address the concerns he raised," his spokesman Paul Cox said.

While lawmakers are understandably having difficulty swallowing the cost of the program, Myers said it won't happen without sufficient money.

"[Immigration and Naturalization Service] was asked to do in 1986 what we are trying to do now, but didn't get the funding," Myers said.

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we already have ways of tracking these fools without adding any more cost.. this is just another way of bleeding the taxpayer