Criminal immigrants have found entry easy: That has to change

February 1, 2009

New Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has issued what amounts to a "get out" order for undocumented criminal immigrants .
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But scrubbed of its Wild West tone, Napolitano's new push to rid American streets of criminal immigrants comes down to finessing existing efforts through better use of information technology. She wants federal immigration officials to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally immediately after being processed into a detention facility. After the serving his or her sentence, immigration officials can be ready to deport that person right away.

But at the local level -- ground zero of immigration enforcement -- police departments are constantly tripped up in the tracking process by the highly complicated network of identity fraud.

Take for example, Georgetown, where some 4,000 illegal immigrants call home.

On an annual basis, that small town police force sees hundreds of forms of identification being presented to them at traffic stops, during criminal arrests and in settling domestic disputes.

Up to 75 percent of police resources are spent dealing with the town's immigrant population. "We got people in the system now that were arrested as someone else," says Chief William Topping. "And once you get arrested the first time around that is the name that is used. It follows you through the system, it's linked to all your paperwork and your fingerprints."

By the time the real name has been discovered, the criminal has been released under the assumed identification and is using yet another borrowed or stolen identity, often from another otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrant.

In places like Georgetown, improved data sharing has to lead to eliminating the acceptable forms of identification that criminals can use to distort their real identity.

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