OCHLA: Secure communities forming in ohio

May 4, 2011

Secure Communities is the name of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program that has been implemented across much of Ohio. It is a program that increases cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and ICE. The program has proven to be somewhat controversial, but continues to spread to more and more jurisdictions since its inception in 2008. With the additions of Adams, Darke, Greene, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Preble and Sciota counties this month, Secure Communities is now live in 68 Ohio jurisdictions.

Secure Communities works by adding a database to police biometric checks. When a person is arrested, their fingerprints are traditionally checked against Departmentof Justice criminal history records. With Secure Communities, fingerprints taken by police when a suspect is booked into a jail are also run against Department of Homeland Security immigration records. If there is a “hitâ€