New ICE Initiative Uses Biometrics to Enhance Identification and Removal of Dangerous Criminal Aliens from Imperial County, CA
EL CENTRO, Calif. - Law enforcement agencies in Imperial County will benefit from a new initiative
developed by the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) that modernizes the
process used to accurately identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens from the community.
The initiative, Secure Communities, is administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Secure Communities enables ICE to determine whether an individual arrested by a participating state or
local law enforcement agency is a dangerous criminal alien and take the appropriate action to remove that
individual from the community.
The Secure Communities biometric identification technology is now accessible to the state and local law
enforcement agencies in Imperial County that use electronic booking machines maintained by the
Imperial County Jail. The program has already been implemented in approximately 79 counties, including
Los Angeles and San Diego, with nationwide coverage expected by the end of 2013.
Formerly as part of the booking process, arrestees' fingerprints were taken and checked for criminal
history information against the DOJ biometric system maintained by the FBI. With the implementation of
Secure Communities in Imperial County yesterday, the fingerprint information will now be simultaneously
checked against both the FBI criminal history records and the biometrics-based immigration records
maintained by the DHS.
If any fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies
ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate
enforcement action after offenders complete their prison terms. Top priority is given to aliens who pose
the greatest threat to public safety, such as those with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder,
rape, robbery and kidnapping.
"Secure Communities is a DHS initiative to more broadly manage and modernize the processes used to
identify and ultimately remove dangerous criminal aliens from our communities," said Acting Secure
Communities Executive Director Marc Rapp. "Our goal with this effort is to use information sharing to
prevent criminal aliens from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on
our local law enforcement partners."
Secure Communities enhances the ongoing joint efforts by the Imperial County Sheriff's Office and ICE to
identify criminal aliens in the Imperial County Jail system and process them for deportation. As a result of
those efforts, more than 260 criminal aliens were turned over to ICE last year following their release from the
custody of the sheriff's office.
Secure Communities bolsters the ongoing joint efforts by ICE and participating law enforcement agencies in
the United States. Eventually, with DOJ and other DHS component collaboration, ICE plans to expand this
capability to all state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.
Secure Communities is part of DHS's comprehensive plan to distribute technology that links local law
enforcement agencies to both FBI and DHS biometric systems. DHS's US VISIT Automated Biometric
Identification System (IDENT) holds biometrics-based immigration records, while the FBI's Integrated
Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) contains biometrics-based criminal records.
"US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable
information when and where they need it," said US VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the
interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision
makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."
"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at
the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens,"
said the Assistant Director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division Daniel D. Roberts.
"Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already
forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."
Secure Communities is a key facet of ICE's enforcement priority to identify, locate and remove criminal
aliens, building on the success of the agency's Criminal Alien Program. In fiscal year 2008, ICE identified
more than 221,000 potentially removable aliens incarcerated nationwide. This fiscal year, the agency
anticipates spending more than $1 billion on such efforts, which in addition to Secure Communities, also
includes expanding the agency's Criminal Alien Program and Fugitive Operations Program.
More information about ICE's Secure Communities effort is available at www.ice.gov.