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.

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.

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.

Feds Target Illegal Hires

Feds Target Illegal Hires (WSJ MarketWatch)

"In states where E-Verify is mandatory, there are still illegal workers," said Mr. Cerda, the immigration attorney. He argues that E-Verify must be linked to a biometric identity system to be effective.

For technical background see Tom Bush's white paper linked at this post.

Doctor convicted of surgery to alter immigrant fingerprints

Sentenced to a year and a day in prison (Reuters AlertNet)

"A doctor from the Dominican Republic was convicted and sentenced in Boston on Thursday of offering to surgically alter the fingerprints of illegal aliens, the U.S. Department of Justice said. The case is one of a number of attempts in recent years to subvert the federal government's new biometric border security program, known as the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Jose Elias Zaiter-Pou, 62, pleaded guilty of conspiring to conceal illegal aliens from detection by law enforcement authorities, by surgically altering their fingerprints in exchange for payment."

The doctor will be deported after serving his sentence. Two things come to mind:

I wonder if he will alter his own fingerprints.

Maybe they should throw iris or another modality into the mix.

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.

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