District of Columbia News 



5 Va. jurisdictions join federal program targeting violent illegal immigrants
By: Freeman Klopott

April 13, 2010




Law enforcement agencies in five Northern Virginia jurisdictions have joined a nationwide federal immigration records sharing program that's designed to take the most violent illegal immigrants off the street.

Under the program, known as Secure Communities, Arlington, Loudoun, Fauquier and Rappahannock counties, along with the city of Alexandria, will now run the fingerprints of every jail inmate through biometrics immigration records held by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI criminal records. Fairfax and Prince William counties are already a part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program.

"Secure Communities will improve our local efforts in removing criminal aliens from the country who are involved in gang activity and other serious crime in our communities," said Loudoun County Sheriff Steve Simpson. "There's many people with phony documents out there and with this tool we'll be able to cut through all of that."

When an inmate's fingerprints find a match in the database, ICE said it will be notified and act to ensure that criminal illegal immigrants are not released back to the community. The agency's top priority will be on removing the most violent suspects such as murderers and rapists.

Previously, Secure Communities fingerprints were checked against state and federal databases that did not necessarily include information about immigration.

Every jurisdiction across the nation is expected to be using Secure Communities by 2013 and it's currently used by 145 jurisdictions in 18 states. Since ICE began using the program in October 2008, the agency has identified more than 18,800 illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of crimes that included murder, rape and kidnapping. More than 4,000 of those have been removed from the country.

Unlike 287G, the controversial federal program that trains local police officers to enforce federal immigration laws, Secure Communities is fully funded by the federal government.

"Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to prevent criminal aliens from being released back into the community, with little to no additional burden on our law enforcement partners," said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella.

Secure Communities also avoids the racial profiling concerns that have followed 287G, Simpson said.

"Everyone who is arrested gets checked," he said. "If you don't get arrested, then you don't have anything to worry about."


fkopott@washingtonexaminer.com


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