Newsom OK with new U.S. policy on fingerprints
Rachel Gordon,Demian Bulwa

Friday, May 7, 2010



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Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration expressed no reservations Thursday over a new national fingerprinting program that critics say could undermine San Francisco's sanctuary city policy.

The federal Secure Communities program, which launched in 2008, is being phased in nationwide. It effectively takes away the ability of local officials to decide which suspects booked into jail should be brought to the attention of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Next month it will start in San Francisco. In the Bay Area, Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano and Sonoma counties recently implemented the program, but report they've seen few changes.

"Sanctuary city policies were never meant to protect criminal behavior," said Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker. "At the end of the day, federal officials should enforce immigration laws. We report. We don't deport."

Currently, the San Francisco County Sheriff's Department only reports felony suspects whose immigration status can't be verified to ICE.

Next month electronic fingerprints of suspects already sent to state justice departments for criminal background checks automatically will be forwarded to federal immigration authorities.

Jeff Adachi, San Francisco's elected public defender, said he is troubled by the prospect that people booked for even minor offenses could be swept into the federal immigration system.

"If we begin deporting everyone ... you run the risk of creating a situation that undermines our ... sense of treating people fairly and due process," Adachi said.

The program's goal is to deport all those who are eligible. However, resources are limited, and priority will be given to violent and serious offenders, said Randi Greenberg, the chief of outreach for the Secure Communities program.

That doesn't mean the reach won't be expanded later, said Supervisor David Campos, who entered the United States illegally as a teen and later became a citizen.

"I don't know if anyone knows all the ramifications of this until it goes into full effect," he said.

Secure Communities officials said Thursday that the program has been a boon for public safety while costing local law enforcement officers little in time and money and removing the potential for allegations of racial profiling.

From October to March, more than 1.9 million digital fingerprints were submitted to Secure Communities. The prints, ICE officials said, were compared to a database containing more than 100 million people who had past contact with immigration authorities.

Some 212,000 matches were made, leading to 56,000 immigration arrests or holds. The program is likely to lead to more deportations.

In fiscal 2008, 114,415 people with past convictions were removed nationwide, and this year authorities are on a pace to deport more than 150,000 such people, records show.

The program so far has made few waves in the Bay Area. Alameda County jail just joined the program on April 22.

Sheriff's Lt. Jim Farr in Alameda County said he has seen few changes. On Thursday he had 155 inmates with immigration holds, a number that he said had not changed significantly.

The Sonoma County jail joined the program on March 2. That month, ICE said, the jail submitted 1,780 fingerprints, leading to 185 matches - including 14 who were either arrested, or convicted in the past, for a serious or violent crime.

Immigration agents then arrested or put a hold on 68 people, and 29 have already been deported.


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