Thread: TO CATCH A CRIMINAL - Secure Communities

TO CATCH A CRIMINAL

2/13/2011
By DAVID CLOUSTON Salina Journal

In January, Saline County became one of two Kansas counties so far to benefit from a new strategy that makes enhanced use of fingerprints and technology to identify and remove illegal immigrants convicted of crimes.
The new capability is part of Secure Communities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) strategy to improve and modernize information-sharing between agencies when illegal immigrants are booked into local law enforcement's custody.

Saline and Sedgwick counties are the two jurisdictions thus far that have been activated for the program in Kansas. Through the program, fingerprints electronically transmitted from the county jail are checked against FBI criminal history records, as they traditionally have been, but also against Department of Homeland Security immigration records.

"It's a lot faster than what we're used to," Saline County Sheriff's Capt. Roger Soldan, who supervises jail operations, said about the new system. A hit in the system pops up, and the phone is ringing with a call from an ICE representative not long after, he said.

ICE will determine if immigration enforcement action is required, based on the immigration status of the individual, the severity of the crime and the individual's criminal history.

This applies to the fingerprints of everyone arrested and booked in to the jail. ICE says its priority first will be illegal immigrants convicted of the most serious crimes -- such as major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"It reduces the accusations of local profiling, since we're not just running the fingerprints or names of those manually submitted by the jails," said Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman with ICE's Chicago office.

Things go much quicker

Saline County Sheriff Glen Kochanowski praised the new system for streamlining the criminal illegal immigrant identification process. It enables the county to know sooner if they have a person in custody that ICE wants detained -- either because they're a convicted violent offender or have been previously deported.

In years past, when a person who was arrested couldn't communicate directly with officers due to a language barrier, or simply refused to cooperate, it might take a day or two to learn the person's identity and if they had a criminal record, the sheriff said.

"It's an opportunity to take advantage of technology that's out there to make our jobs a little easier," Kochanowski said. "It's a tremendous asset to us to have things done that quickly."

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 58,300 illegal immigrants convicted of a crime.

"Everyone is being checked against immigration databases, not just the select individuals who might have been flagged for immigration purposes," she said.

But why Saline County?

Secure Communities started in 2007 and now extends to 1,030 jurisdictions in 38 states. Jurisdictions with the highest criminal illegal immigrant population are targeted first. That statistical designation is determined using a combination of U.S. Census data, FBI crime statistics and ICE immigration data, Montenegro said.

She said she couldn't provide details on why Saline County was chosen for the program ahead of other counties and cities with potentially greater illegal immigrant populations.

In Saline County in 2008, the sheriff's office jailed 177 illegal immigrants, and detained 70 of those for ICE.

In 2009, the sheriff's office jailed 111 illegal immigrants and detained 51 for ICE; in 2010, those numbers were 74 and 46.

So far the new system has identified at least three individuals arrested locally who were living in the U.S. illegally, Soldan said. None had any serious criminal offense records.

Law officers on patrol run across most illegal immigrants through routine stops for traffic infractions, Soldan said.

But just because someone is arrested doesn't mean they'll be detained by ICE. If ICE doesn't want them and their crime isn't serious, they could be freed after posting bond and be on their way.

"(ICE) doesn't have resources to send everybody back, is what it comes down to. They focus on the criminals, for the most part. And that's not just here, it's a problem nationwide," Soldan said.

More than 3,000 agencies

Electronic fingerprint submission capability isn't necessary to participate in the Secure Communities program, Montenegro said. Some jurisdictions such as Saline County, use electronic fingerprinting equipment. Other law enforcement agencies continue to rely on traditional ink fingerprint cards that are scanned and converted to electronic files that are submitted to the FBI.

Under both methods, digital electronic fingerprint images are transmitted from the FBI system to the Department of Homeland Security to check the prints against immigration records, Montenegro said.

There are more than 3,000 law enforcement jurisdictions and more than 30,000 fingerprint submission points across the country that ICE is bringing into the Secure Communities system incrementally, Montenegro said.

Fingerprints accurate

By 2013, ICE plans to have Secure Communities fully implemented nationwide, she said. New jurisdictions are being added to the system almost weekly.

Fingerprints are accurate, reliable and virtually impossible to forge, Montenegro said. The deployment of Secure Communities to a law enforcement jurisdiction puts no additional burden on officers or makes any changes to their procedures.

"ICE maintains the sole authority still to determine an alien's immigration status," she said. "We're not asking the local authorities to enforce immigration laws in any way."


Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

http://www.saljournal.com/news/story/IC ... nts-020711

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