Monday, Aug. 22, 2011

Houston, Monroe to check inmates’ immigration status

Secure Communities program expected to be nationwide by 2013
By ANDREA CASTILLO - acastillo@macon.com

At least two Middle Georgia counties are participating in a federal immigration program that helps local law enforcement identify whether inmates are in the country legally.

The program, known as Secure Communities, allows law enforcement to check the fingerprints of inmates against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records to determine inmates’ immigration status. The program is expected to be nationwide by 2013.

Law enforcement officials say Secure Communities helps make booking easier and local areas safer. Meanwhile, the program has drawn strong criticism in recent weeks from critics who say immigrants may be less willing to report crimes for fear of deportation and that the program does not distinguish offenders of serious crimes from lesser ones.

For the most part, jail booking procedures, such as fingerprinting, remain the same.

In addition to a decades-long practice of sharing fingerprints through an FBI database to check whether someone has an existing record, Secure Communities takes those prints to be compared against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, records to see if someone is in the country illegally or removable for a criminal offense.

Forty-seven percent of local jurisdictions across the country were participating in the program as of Aug. 2.

Of 43 Georgia counties participating in the Secure Communities program, Houston County was the first in Middle Georgia to get on board in March. It was implemented in Monroe County in July.

Response from law enforcement

Participation in Secure Communities expands on practices that were already in place at the Houston County Detention Center, with authorities there already contacting ICE officials when foreign-born people were in their custody, said Capt. Beth Shafer.

Besides the cost of housing inmates, Houston County does not incur additional costs from participation, she said.

According to Shafer, the program allows law enforcement to check on the person’s immigration status with ICE in a matter of hours, as opposed to days in the past. Secure Communities also helps them when suspects give aliases and allows them to release those who are not deportable more quickly.

“Fingerprints don’t lie,â€