Homeland Security and Justice Departments Providing More Info to Local Officers

Four law enforcement agencies in North Carolina are getting a new database link to automatically check the criminal and immigration history of everyone who gets booked into jail. Will the link help Homeland Security and local law enforcement work together?

In an article in the Hawai’i Reporter, Jim Kouri says Wake County Sheriff’s Office became the first agency last week to get the link, according to a report submitted to the National Association of Chiefs of Police. The new process is designed to provide local officers with as much information available about individuals they arrest and help to more efficiently identify criminal aliens for potential removal.

“The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice have made enhancements to their respective biometric systems — the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) and the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) to improve the interoperability of the two systems and enable this new information sharing process,” Kouri says.

IDENT and IAFIS interoperability is the cornerstone of Secure Communities, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE's) comprehensive plan to identify and remove criminal aliens from local communities. In collaboration with DOJ and other DHS components, ICE plans to expand this capability to more than 50 state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the nation by next spring.

“Interoperability will create a virtual ICE presence at every local jail, allowing us to identify and ultimately remove dangerous incarcerated criminal aliens from our communities,” Julie L. Myers, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE, told Kouri. “Using this technology, we will build upon the remarkable success we have had working with state and local law enforcement and we will revolutionize the process of identifying criminal aliens in custody.”