Secure Communities, RIP

Obama Finally Puts an End to Unpopular Secure Communities Program (AllGov)

As part of broader immigration reforms, the Obama administration announced Thursday that the Secure Communities program, which mandated that local law enforcement submit biometric information on those suspected of being undocumented immigrants to the federal government, is going away. In its place will be the Priority Enforcement Program, which specifies that those held must be likely deportable or have a removal order in effect against them.

See also: Obamnesty ends Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Communities program (USA Today)

The tone of the two headlines provides an interesting contrast. Few who knew about the Secure Communities program were ambivalent about it.

Our discussion of the program (maps, statistics, etc.) peaked in 2012.

Massachusetts & Secure Communities

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson welcomed the news that the program will go into effect statewide May 15 (South Coast Today)

Here's the AP's take:
Controversial immigration program goes ahead despite Gov. Patrick’s objections

The program appears to be popular with elected law enforcement officials (county sheriffs) but less so among other elected leaders (the governor and some city councils).

Click here for DHS ICE coverage PDF.

The comprehensive PFD at the ICE site has detail for each state. The only participating county in Massachusetts led to the detection of roughly the same number of re-arrested criminal aliens as in entire state of Missouri.

See post below for a national perspective on Secure Communities.

ICE Secure Communities Nationwide Coverage Map: May 2012

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secure Communities:

The highest priority of any law enforcement agency is to protect the communities it serves. When it comes to enforcing our nation's immigration laws, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focuses its limited resources on those who have been arrested for breaking criminal laws.

ICE prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety, and repeat immigration violators. Secure Communities is a simple and common sense way to carry out ICE's priorities. It uses an already-existing federal information-sharing partnership between ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that helps to identify criminal aliens without imposing new or additional requirements on state and local law enforcement.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a full update of every county participating in the Secure Communities initiative and when they came onboard. Click here for the full PDF.

Here's what the map looked like in November 2011.

In other news, it appears that by the time the next report comes out, Massachusetts may be colored green...

Bristol County Sheriff hails federal decision to launch Secure Communities program in Mass. (South Coast Today)

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson welcomed the news that the program, designed to determine suspects' immigration status, will go into effect statewide May 15. "It's a big victory for the law enforcement community," said Hodgson, who had fought to bring the program to the state. "It's a big victory for the citizens of Massachusetts." When a suspect is brought to a Bristol County jail, his or her biometric fingerprint information will be shared not only with the Federal Bureau of Investigation — as is currently the case — but also with immigration officials, he said.

Biometrics Help Discover Another Sex Offender Illegally Entering the United States

Agents halt U.S. entry to sex offender (Alamogordo Daily News)

The system positively identified Lemus. The system also revealed Lemus' prior convictions for sex offense against a child-fondling conduct on a 16-year-old child, cruelty to a child, child abuse resulting in no great bodily harm and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Agents use Biometrics to halt sex offender entry into U.S.

Las Cruces Sun-News

The subject is identified as Luis Rene Lemus, 45, a Cuban national.

Lemus' biographical and biometric information were entered into the Integrated Automated Identification System. The system positively identified Lemus. The system also revealed Lemus' prior convictions for sex offense against a child-fondling conduct on a 16-year-old child, cruelty to a child, child abuse resulting in no great bodily harm and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

ICE Secure Communities Nationwide Coverage Map

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a full update of every county participating in the Secure Communities initiative and when they came onboard. Click here for the full PDF.

Interesting:
♦ Oregon has 100% participation while Washington has very little
♦ Wisconsin has 100% participation while Minnesota has 0%
♦ Pennsylvania has 3 counties participating while nearly every county that borders PA, with the noticeable exception of New Jersey counties participates

From the ICE website:

Secure Communities is a simple and common sense way to carry out ICE's priorities. It uses an already-existing federal information-sharing partnership between ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that helps to identify criminal aliens without imposing new or additional requirements on state and local law enforcement. For decades, local jurisdictions have shared the fingerprints of individuals who are booked into jails with the FBI to see if they have a criminal record. Under Secure Communities, the FBI automatically sends the fingerprints to ICE to check against its immigration databases. If these checks reveal that an individual is unlawfully present in the United States or otherwise removable due to a criminal conviction, ICE takes enforcement action – prioritizing the removal of individuals who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by the severity of their crime, their criminal history, and other factors – as well as those who have repeatedly violated immigration laws.

Secure Communities imposes no new or additional requirements on state and local law enforcement, and the federal government, not the state or local law enforcement agency, determines what immigration enforcement action, if any, is appropriate. Only federal DHS officers make immigration enforcement decisions, and they do so only after an individual is arrested for a criminal violation of state law, separate and apart from any violations of immigration law.

FBI Next-Generation Identification initiative and Interoperability

Upgraded FBI biometric database to identify dangerous undocumented immigrants (nextgov.com)

A July 6 FBI internal fact sheet [.pdf] that an immigrants rights coalition obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, says, "IDENT/IAFIS interoperability under Secure Communities is part of a larger FBI/[Criminal Justice Information Services] Next-Generation Identification initiative," adding that "[Secure Communities] is the first opportunity for [law enforcement agencies] to fully and accurately identify suspects in their custody and gives them a head start on NGI."

Interoperability happens (or doesn't happen) at both the technical and the organizational level. The project described in the article requires high degree of interoperability from a whole lot of technical and organizational units.

The .pdf linked within the quote contains an internal FBI presentation to assist agents in fostering organizational interoperability between the FBI and local law enforcement organizations.

The technology is improving and the country's premiere law enforcement agency is adapting and applying the tech to the challenges it is charged with meeting.

The people side is the hard part.

Secure Communities program ‘very successful’

A local perspective (Gadsden Times - Alabama)

“Someone who is here illegally, but has never been in trouble before, will not show up in this system,” Hassell said. “It is aimed at the persons who keep coming to the U.S. illegally and committing crimes on our streets. It just does it in a more practical way.”

Since the program has been operational, it has been “very successful,” Hassell said.

“It doesn’t look at the color of your skin or the accent of your voice,” he said. “It looks at clear, objective data.”

DeKalb County Alabama joins Secure Communities

DeKalb County joins federal immigration program (Sand Mountain Reporter)

The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office is the most recent addition to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Secure Communities Initiative.

Click to enlarge.

DeKalb County is shaded light gray. Other Secure Communities counties are darker gray. The red lines represent major interstates in Alabama.

I started this map on the theory that counties would be more likely to adopt Secure Communities if they (a) bordered a county that was already participating or (b) were located on an interstate highway. Both are the case with DeKalb county.

DeKalb County also borders the state of Georgia and its northern tip appears to be within a few miles of Tennessee. Law enforcement jurisdictions that are located on interstates and near two (or more) other states face significant challenges.

See also: Alabama joins Secure Communities



UPDATE (November 15, 2011):
I've fallen behind in keeping track of the Alabama counties participating in Secure Communities. Thankfully ICE has provided an up-to-date resource for where Secure Communities is in place. Here's Alabama:

Here's the pdf with Secure Communities participation for each state.

Alabama joins Secure Communities

Thirteen Alabama counties will begin participating in the Secure Communities system Tuesday (AL.com)

Alabama is the last state in the South to begin using a federal program for locating and possibly deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Jefferson, the most populous county in Alabama, is not included.

In the map below, the participating counties are gray. The red lines show the approximate positions of Alabama's interstate highways.

ICE Secure Communities adds counties in MD, MI & SC

Maryland (Press Release via Yahoo)

On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using the Secure Communities program in Alleghany, Garrett and Washington counties to help federal immigration officials identify criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails by running their fingerprints against federal immigration databases when they are booked into the system.

Michigan (Press Release via Yahoo)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using the Secure Communities program in seven Michigan counties including Allegan, Barry, Calhoun, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Ottawa...

South Carolina (The Times and Democrat)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started using the Secure Communities program in Orangeburg and other counties to help identify criminal aliens in local jails by running their fingerprints against federal immigration databases.

The Maryland counties added are of local interest to us here in West Virginia. All three counties border West Virginia. Garrett county lies about 25 miles east of Morgantown.

This is what Secure Communities actually does

Border-crosser wanted on other charge (El Paso Times)

One of six people allegedly found crossing the border near Santa Teresa was discovered to be wanted on a charge of molesting a child in Bernalillo County, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

U.S. Border Patrol nabs alleged sexual offender at station (Alamogordo Daily News)

Adrian Armendariz, 36, of Mexico, was positively identified as having an outstanding warrant for alleged criminal sexual contact of a minor in Bernalillo County. Records also indicated that Armendariz has an extensive criminal history that includes trafficking cocaine, aggravated assault of household member and transportation and selling of controlled substances.

These two articles apparently describe the same event.

Other posts on ICE Secure Communities.

All California counties have activated Secure Communities

Secure Communities Program Uses Biometrics to Target Illegal Immigrants (Emergency Management)

Since May 2009, when San Diego County became the first California jurisdiction to activate Secure Communities, ICE has taken custody of nearly 48,000 convicted criminal aliens in the state.

Secure Communities helps remove 461 previously convicted aliens from a single county in one year

Thursday marks the first year of Sacramento’s participation in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Secure Communities program (PRWeb via Yahoo)

Of the 461 convicted criminal aliens removed from Sacramento County in the last year, 192 are considered Level 1 offenders, which includes those convicted of serious or violent crimes, such as murder, sexual assault and robbery. Another 126 are Level 2 offenders, which includes individuals with convictions for offenses such as arson, burglary and property crimes. As part of the Secure Communities strategy, ICE is prioritizing its enforcement efforts to ensure that individuals who pose the greatest threat to public safety are removed first.

Regardless of the offenses for which individuals are initially booked, the Secure Communities screening may reveal more serious criminal histories. For example, the fingerprint check of a man who used an alias following his arrest in September by Sacramento police for carrying an open container of alcohol in public, revealed he had multiple prior convictions for drug trafficking as well as a conviction for assault with a firearm and had been previously deported. ICE presented the individual, Jorge Vega-Reyes, to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution for felony re-entry after deportation. Vega was convicted in November and is currently serving a 27-month prison sentence, following which he will be deported to Mexico.

Massachusetts joins Secure Communities

Gov. Patrick signs on to Biometric data sharing program (SomervilleNews.com)

“[The Department of Homeland Security] is implementing Secure Communities with or without the commonwealth,” said Harris. “So we elected to sign the memorandum of agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement so we can participate in how when and where it’s rolled out in the commonwealth.”

The Secure Communities program, created by the Federal Department of Homeland Security, would use biometric data taken from fingerprints of those arrested and cross-reference them with Immigrant and Customs Enforcement databases in an effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants.

Other posts on the topic here.

Secure Communities in the News

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been implementing the Secure Communities strategy throughout the country for several years now.

The initiative seeks to prioritize the use of resources in order to place the highest priority on removing individuals who are both in the United States illegally and have committed violent crimes.

The system uses fingerprint biometric identity management technology to integrate local law enforcement officials with a central database of individuals who fit the criteria above. The search against the central database is only performed if the individual is arrested again.

As the system is being implemented across the U.S., local reaction varies dramatically as a survey of headlines shows.

UPDATE: These links are no longer useful
Bing News Searches:
"Secure Communities" Kansas
"Secure Communities" Maryland
"Secure Communities" Massachusetts

Monday Roundup

Three topics seem to be dominating biometrics news today:

Biometrics 'Inherently Fallible' (RedOrbit.com)
For perspective, see Saturday's post.
More articles: Bing News

WVU seeks volunteers for biometrics study (WVPubcast.org; Text & Audio)
Blog post here.
More articles: Bing News

Boston & Secure Communities (Boston.com)
More articles: Bing News

Secure Communities in the news

ICE's Secure Communities program is getting a lot of attention.

SW Idaho to use fingerprints to ID illegal aliens - KHQ - Spokane, WA (6/4/2010)
Arizona immigration debate heats up in D.C. area - WTOP - Washington, DC (6/3/2010)
Secure Communities to Start in SF on Tues - SFGate - San Francisco, CA (6/1/2010)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secure Communities fact sheet.