In the past, undocumented aliens who were arrested but had no criminal history on record or were using an alias were granted "voluntary return." But now authorities have the tools to catch forged identities and quickly pull up data on an individual's previous infractions. The IDENT database captures fingerprint data for all foreign nationals entering the United States -- information that is hard to fake -- and permits government officials to cross-check them against the digital prints of known offenders."Voluntary Return" applied to those not legally present in the US that didn't have criminal records. Sounds great. Less bureaucratic overhead and a "no harm, no foul" solution.
Unfortunately, without any rigorous system of ID management, the Voluntary Return program created a revolving door for some real unsavory characters so long as they could avoid getting ID'ed as repeat offenders.
It looks like the FBI's new IDENT system is closing this loophole and providing a better picture of the patterns of extra-legal migration.
