Thread: PA - On the trail of illegal criminals

By: BEN FINLEY
The Intelligencer
When Juan Chan was busted in January for allegedly stealing $280 worth of clothing from the Macy's in Bensalem, he got more than just a first-degree misdemeanor charge.

He also caught the eye of federal immigration officials who say he is an illegal alien.

Chan is part of a small but growing population of illegal immigrants who have first been charged with crimes in Bucks County and then face immigration court proceedings which could end in deportation. The suspects' alleged crimes range from retail theft to murder.

In an unprecedented effort, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents have been increasing their presence in Bucks and Montgomery counties, tracking down illegal immigrants charged with crimes in the region. And staff at the county's prison and local police departments are helping them, officials said.

With state-of-the-art technology being used in county prison since December, it only takes minutes to discover if an inmate in Bucks came to the U.S. illegally, officials said.

It works like this: A new inmate arrives in the county prison and his paperwork lists that he was born in a foreign country - or law enforcement officials suspect he was.

His fingerprints are scanned and compared electronically with the 90 million sets of prints in the databases of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. If the inmate came here illegally, his prints can quickly indicate that. He may have been caught by a border patrol during a previous, unsuccessful attempt to cross the border.

Or he previously may have come to the country through legal means, or tried to, in which case his fingerprints would've been taken. Or he may be in another state's crime database and listed there as illegal.If his fingerprints don't show up anywhere, an ICE agent will come to the prison and interview the inmate and make a determination about his immigration status.

Advertisement Sometimes, local police departments, such as Bensalem's, will call ICE agents after they arrest someone and begin the process from police headquarters, officials said.

Two federal programs are being used. One - "Secure Communities" - is a two-month-old program that uses the county prison's $1.2 million computer system for referencing new inmates' fingerprints and matching them against millions of fingerprints in various crime databases.

The other program is the two-year-old Criminal Alien Program, which places ICE agents in Bucks, where they interview suspected illegal immigrants in prison or in local police stations. ICE said it plans to expand such efforts nationwide by the end of 2012.

In January, 26 of Bucks' 1,300 inmates faced immigration court proceedings, said Harris Gubernick, director of the county's corrections department.

But the number can vary, officials said. Usually, Bucks has about 50 to 60 inmates who were born in foreign countries - 25 percent of whom are illegal - officials said.

Inmates in county prison who are illegal immigrants include Jose Esteban Maldonado-Luzuriaga, who was charged with murder in December when he allegedly drove a truck into a bartender outside a Bensalem bar, killing the man.

Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran stressed the new effort only applies to people with whom police have had prior contact or who have been arrested.

"We're not going through neighborhoods looking for people who might be illegal," Harran said.

But, he added: "If you're going to come to this country illegally, don't come to Bensalem to commit crime. You're going to go back where you came from."

Ben Finley can be reached at 215-949-4203 or bfinley@phillyBurbs.com.

March 10, 2009 01:41 AM

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_de ... inals.html

I'm so excited about Bucks Country cracking down on illegals. Bucks Country is a nice area and I hope they are able to maintain it.

This is wonderful news....my family and I live there. Yes, it's absolutely beautiful, serene, wonderful people but illegal immigration has touched this area with some of the most horrific crimes in the last few years that have absolutely devastated the victims and the victim's families.