Agenda - 01-21-2010 - 3b - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

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