ICE Unveils New “Secure Communities” Plan

On March 28, 2008, DHS/ICE unveiled a new "Secure Communities" plan (see e.g. www.ice.gov). Key enhancements in the Secure Communities plan include:

 

• ICE will work with its partners to distribute integration technology that will link local law enforcement agencies to both FBI and DHS biometric databases. Currently, as part of the

routine booking process, local officers submit an arrested person's fingerprints through FBI databases to access that individual's criminal history. With interoperability, those

fingerprints will also automatically be checked against DHS databases to access immigration history information. The automated process would also notify ICE when

fingerprints match those of an immigration violator. ICE officers would conduct follow up interviews and take appropriate action.

• ICE will identify removable criminal aliens and prioritize their removal based on the threat they pose to the community.

• ICE will continue working with local, state and federal detention centers and the Department of Justice Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) to increase the

number of facilities that use video teleconferencing technology.

• Working with ICE, U.S. Attorney's Offices will seek to prosecute more criminal aliens who illegally re-enter the country. This initiative is aimed at deterring recidivism.

• ICE will streamline processes for the Office of Detention and Removal including the expanded use of the Alternatives to Detention Program (ATD) and by more efficiently

obtaining removal orders and travel documents before criminal aliens are released from local custody.

• ICE will continue and expand the use of its Rapid REPAT (Removal of Eligible Parolees Accepted for Transfer) program whereby criminal aliens serving state sentences receive

early parole in exchange for assisting in their removal from the United States. The programs are restricted to criminal aliens who have not been convicted of serious felonies and who

have no history of violence. The program has proven successful in New York and Arizona thus far and ICE seeks to establish Rapid REPAT programs in four additional states by the

end of FY 2008.

 

It appears that the government is taking its own actions to remedy the "illegal alien problem" since Congress has yet to come up with a plan for comprehensive immigration reform…….