Thread: FL: BSO latest to join fingerprint registry

Posted on Fri, Aug. 28, 2009
BSO latest to join fingerprint registry

BY TRENTON DANIEL

The days of ink fingerprints on index cards are over.

The Broward Sheriff's Office became the latest law enforcement agency this week to share inmate fingerprints digitally with the Department of Homeland Security as part of a nationwide program to keep criminal undocumented immigrants off the streets.

``Instead of doing ink fingerprints on index cards and having people trying to sort through them, it's digital now,'' BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal said.

``This is going to be the future, I think, of law enforcement.''

The effort, formally known as Secure Communities, checks to see if undocumented immigrants have criminal records.

After the arrest, their fingerprints are automatically checked against criminal background records with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and against the biometrics-based immigration records maintained by DHS, the federal agency that oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

If the fingerprints match those of a person in a DHS database, ICE and the law enforcement agency are notified.

According to ICE, it will evaluate each case to determine the individual's immigration status and then take appropriate action, which could include deportation.

Priority is given to undocumented immigrants with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery, and kidnapping.

Last month at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Secure Communities was a ``way to have the immigration database right in prisons,'' which allows immigrants to be returned to their home countries quickly after serving their sentences.

The Obama administration plans to expand the computerized program nationwide by late 2012.

On Tuesday, BSO joined the ranks of other law enforcement agencies -- in South Florida and beyond -- that use Secure Communities.

The program started last December with the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, a spokeswoman said.

More than 70 counties nationwide use the Secure Committees program.

But since the federal government unveiled the program in October 2008, immigrant advocates have argued that it unfairly targets immigrants for deportation before they are convicted of any crime, when they should be presumed innocent.

``It erases the value of presumption of innocence if you're an immigrant,'' said Subhash Kateel, an organizer for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a statewide group that advocates for immigrant rights.

Pro-immigrant groups also contend that the Secure Communities program could deter crime reporting.

They say that undocumented immigrants may not report crimes or cooperate with police investigators for fear of being deported.

http://www.miamiherald.com/467/story/1207544.html

Only 70 counties use this?

There are 3,141 counties in the United States. (http://www.usgs.gov/faq/faq.asp?id=785&category_id=31)

70 / 3141 = 2.23%

That's going to do a lot. Why isn't this demanded of every county?

Oh, right sorry, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Chamber of Commerce run the US.

They say that undocumented immigrants may not report crimes or cooperate with police investigators for fear of being deported.

This argument is so old and lame.