Thread: Colorado counties can't afford scanners to make homeland sec

Colorado counties can't afford scanners to make homeland security program work
Government Computer News
By GCN Staff
Aug 16, 2011

More than half of Colorado's 64 counties don't have the digital electronic scanners they need to participate in the Secure Communities program under an agreement between the state and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and some some cash-poor counties don't know where they'll get the $40,000 to $50,000 to buy them, Nancy Lofholm reports in the Denver Post.

Under the program, ICE will report to states how many illegal immigrants are detained and deported and whether they fall into the class of serious criminals, according to the Post story.

Meanwhile, the state came up with $325,000 in federal grant funding to help eight of the poorest counties acquire the equipment by 2013, when the entire country is expected to be covered by Secure Communities, according to the report.

http://gcn.com/articles/2011/08/16/agg- ... nners.aspx

Colorado's pact with ICE becoming national template
By Nancy Lofholm
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/13/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 08/13/2011 09:04:42 PM MDT

Colorado's agreement with federal immigration authorities outlining how the Secure Communities program should work is becoming a template for how the program is implemented nationwide.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has now committed to report to states how many illegal immigrants are detained and deported and whether they fall in the class of serious criminals. ICE also has stated that illegal-immigrant victims of domestic violence and other crimes will be protected.

Those were two key tenets in Colorado's memorandum of agreement with ICE.

Given that ICE vows to continue to hew to Colorado's recommendations for reporting on detentions and deportations and not arresting domestic-violence victims, Gov. John Hickenlooper remains comfortable with Colorado's participation in the program, even as four other states try to wriggle out of Secure Communities.

"We believe the Obama administration is operating in good faith and acknowledged the underlying concerns in Colorado's agreement," said Eric Brown, Hickenlooper's spokesman. "We also understand why these types of immigration issues are better addressed in a uniform national policy."

The Colorado agreement with ICE was formalized in January after a panel of state authorities spent about six months crafting the document under the direction of then-Gov. Bill Ritter. The agreement addressed one of the major concerns with Secure Communities: that ICE might use the program to deport noncriminals.

The agreement required quarterly reports from ICE detailing whether detainees fall in the noncriminal category or have been convicted of crimes. Colorado was the first state to ask for such reporting.

Conflicting messages

Colorado's agreement was, at least on paper, tossed out this month when ICE voided all agreements with the 40 governments that had them. That action came after conflicting messages from ICE about whether the program was voluntary or mandatory and after growing controversy about the possible negative effect of the program on local law enforcement and on the reporting of crimes by immigrants.

Secure Communities was initially presented as a voluntary program whereby local law enforcement agencies share arrestees' digital fingerprints with immigration authorities so their status as legal or illegal residents could be checked. After internal memos and e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by immigration advocacy groups showed ambiguity within the agency about the voluntary nature of the program, ICE declared the program mandatory across the country and tossed out the negotiated agreements — but kept the key parts of Colorado's plan and extended them to other states.

ICE also announced the "improvements" to the way the program will operate.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation and its umbrella agency, the Colorado Department of Public Safety, are satisfied that the important points in the Colorado agreement with ICE are still in place in the new nationwide policy.

"They couldn't have conformed more to the provisions of the agreement that we crafted," said Lance Clem, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. "What they announced nationally is exactly what we asked for."

Headache intensifies

ICE's revelation that the Secure Communities program is mandatory does intensify one headache for Colorado.

More than half of Colorado's 64 counties don't have functional digital electronic scanners that are a key to the Secure Communities program, and some cash-strapped counties don't know where the money will come from to buy the equipment, which will cost $40,000 to $50,000 per county.

The CBI recently came up with $325,000 in federal grant funding to help eight of the poorest counties acquire the equipment by 2013, when the entire country is expected to be covered by Secure Communities. Clem said he doesn't yet know which counties will receive the grant funding or when more federal funds will be available.

The CBI has entered into a pricing agreement with a scanner provider that may bring the cost down closer to $40,000 for each county, Clem said.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18673491