Thread: US-VISIT and FBI Begin Information-Sharing Pilot in Houston

US-VISIT and FBI Begin Information-Sharing Pilot in Houston Area

Provides Harris County Sheriff's Office With Information About Immigration Violators

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 -- The U.S. Department of
Homeland Security's (DHS) US-VISIT program and the Department of Justice

(DOJ)/FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division began a
pilot with the Harris County Sheriff's Office (Texas) on February 1, 2007,
to test an automated information-sharing process.

For the first time, when Harris County Sheriff's officials submit an
arrested person's fingerprints to access criminal history information, they
will also have access to some immigration history information. The
automated process also notifies federal immigration officials when
fingerprints match those of an immigration violator. Immigration officials
will evaluate relevant information about the person and take appropriate
action. Law enforcement officials are not required to take action against
immigration violators.

This pilot, as well as those started last year with the Boston Police
Department and the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, is testing technology
enhancements that US-VISIT and the FBI/CJIS have made to their respective
fingerprint databases, the Automated Biometric Identification System
(IDENT) and the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
(IAFIS).

The enhancements allow for the automated sharing of subsets of criminal
and immigration information in IDENT and IAFIS and are part of the U.S.
government's efforts to ensure that decision-makers have access to the
information they need in a timely manner. Additionally, US-VISIT is moving
toward a 10-fingerprint collection standard for IDENT, which will enable
even greater accuracy when identifying travelers and further complement
IAFIS' 10-fingerprint system.

Already the pilot is benefiting law and immigration enforcement
officials. For example, the Harris County Sheriff's Office booked a person
for assault causing bodily injury to a family member and submitted the
fingerprints for a background check. Despite previous use of nine aliases
and four different dates of birth, the person's fingerprints revealed a
lengthy criminal and immigration history, including: deportation
proceedings; entered without inspection; probation violation; driving while
intoxicated; 18 U.S.C. 1546 fraud in connection with an immigration
document; supervised release violator; and assault. The new process
automatically notified Harris County officers and federal immigration
officials of this information. Following prosecution by Harris County law
enforcement, the person will be turned over to federal immigration
officials for removal from the United States.

For more information, please visit US-VISIT at
http://www.dhs.gov/us-visit .

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stori ... 433&EDATE=

this can be good because houston is a sanctuary city
there is an estimated ONE HALF MILLION illegals in that damn
city and that is why i moved outta there in 1995