DC Plans Fingerprint Program to Target Illegal Aliens
'Secure Communities' identifies through prints

Updated: Friday, 19 Mar 2010, 7:22 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 19 Mar 2010, 7:22 PM EDT

BY PAUL WAGNER/myfoxdc

WASHINGTON - More than a hundred people showed up at a D.C. City Council hearing Friday in hopes of stopping a new program targeting criminal illegal aliens. It’s called "Secure Communities" and is expected to be in place nationwide by 2013.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has expressed support for the program, which is designed to identify people in the U.S. illegally through their fingerprints. But opponents say it violates civil liberties and could plunge police cooperation to a new low.

As it stands now, D.C. Police do not ask anyone arrested in the city about their immigration status. It’s been that way for years.

But a new program, now under consideration, the fingerprints of people arrested for certain crimes would be shared not only with the FBI but with Immigration as well. It is a policy many in the Latino community find deeply troubling.

But at a city council hearing Friday Chief Lanier used the murder of a little boy as an example of how “Secure Communitiesâ€