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11 <br />EXECUTIVE SUMMARY <br />What is Secure Communities? <br />Secure Communities is a DHS program designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable <br />under immigration law. Under Secure Communities, participating jails submit arrestees' fingerprints not <br />only to criminal databases, but to immigration databases as well; allowing ICE access to information on <br />individuals held in jails. Unlike other ICE -local partnerships, Secure Communities gives ICE a <br />technological, not physical, presence in prisons and jails. No Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs) with <br />local law- enforcement agencies are required, and no local law- enforcement agents are deputized to <br />enforce immigration laws through Secure Communities. <br />As of November 2009, Secure Communities is available in 81 iurisdictions in nine states. ICE plans to <br />have a Secure Communities presence in every state by 2011, and plans to implement Secure <br />Communities in each of the 3,100 state and local jails across the country by 2013. <br />How does Secure Communities work? <br />When an individual is booked into a jail, his or her fingerprints are checked against the U.S. Visitor and <br />Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program (US- VISIT), and the Automated Biometric Identification <br />System (IDENT), in addition to the other databases that are generally checked following an arrest. This <br />fingerprint check allows state and local law enforcement and ICE automatically and immediately to <br />search the databases for an individual's criminal and immigration history. <br />If there is a database "hit," meaning that the arrested person is matched to a record indicating an <br />immigration violation, ICE and the local law- enforcement authorities are automatically notified. ICE <br />then evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and take appropriate <br />enforcement action. In most cases, ICE will issue a detainer against the jailed individual. A detainer is a <br />request from ICE to the arresting agency to notify ICE before it releases the noncitizen so that ICE has <br />the opportunity to decide whether the individual should be transferred to federal custody rather than <br />released. <br />ICE reported that as of August 31, 2009, 82,890 fingerprint submissions resulted in a database match. <br />As a result of Secure Communities, ICE had issued 16,631 detainers. <br />What are the concerns about Secure Communities? <br />Identification and prioritization. ICE claims to base action on an individual hit on the following priority <br />order: <br />• Level 1— Individuals who have been convicted of major drug offenses and violent offenses such <br />as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and kidnapping; <br />• Level 2 — Individuals who have been convicted of minor drug offenses and property offenses <br />such as burglary, larceny, fraud, and money laundering; and <br />• Level 3 — Individuals who have been convicted of other offenses. <br />M <br />