WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is making it virtually impossible for jurisdictions to refuse to participate in a controversial immigration enforcement program that uses fingerprints gathered by local law enforcement agencies to identify illegal immigrants.
Participation in the program, called Secure Communities, was widely believed to be voluntary. But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency now says that opting out of the program is not a realistic possibility, and never was.
Secure Communities, which is operating in 32 states and will soon be running nationwide, relies on the fingerprints collected by local authorities when a person is charged with anything from a traffic violation to murder. The fingerprints are sent to state police, and then to the FBI, for criminal background checks.
Under the 2-year-old program, ICE is able to access the information sent to the FBI. If the fingerprint matches that of a person known to be in the country illegally, ICE orders the immigrant detained as a first step toward deportation.
A senior ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the involuntary nature of the program, said: “Secure Communities is not based on state or local cooperation in federal law enforcement. The program’s foundation is information-sharing between FBI and ICE. State and local law enforcement agencies are going to continue to fingerprint people, and those fingerprints are forwarded to FBI for criminal checks. ICE will take immigration action appropriately.”
The only way a local jurisdiction could opt out of the program is if a state refused to send fingerprints to the FBI, an unrealistic prospect.
