Database Is Tool in Deporting Fugitives Police Officers Find Illegal Immigrants In Warrant Searches

Washington Post ^ | June 13, 2007 | Ernesto Londoño

[3AngelaD]

Hugo Vinicio Hernandez knew that immigration agents could detain him at any time for having disregarded a deportation order in 2001. But the Guatemalan man didn't think he would wind up in the custody of immigration agents as a result of a routine traffic stop. He was deported after being pulled over by a Takoma Park police officer in January.

It's a fate that a growing number of illegal immigrants are facing as federal officials add hundreds of thousands of names of people with outstanding deportation orders into the FBI-run National Crime Information Center database, which police officers use to search for warrants...

Supporters of the effort say that enlisting the help of police officers to identify and remove the roughly 600,000 immigrants who are thought to have outstanding deportation orders is long overdue. But two police associations have lobbied against the inclusion, saying that by acting on the warrants, departments risk alienating recent immigrants...

Manger and other area police chiefs have concluded that they are duty-bound to enforce all National Crime Information Center warrants, even at the expense of being perceived as an extension of the immigration bureaucracy...

The database, by design, is a repository of criminal records. A few noncriminal records have been introduced, including missing-persons files and protective orders for victims of domestic violence. Congress authorized the inclusion of deported felons' records in 1996... Lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully in recent years to authorize the inclusion of civil immigration warrants in the database...

A U.S. District Court judge in New York ordered the government to remove civil immigration records from the database in June 2004 after ruling in favor of a man who sued the government after the D.C. police department withdrew a job offer when it found an immigration record through the database....

[3AngelaD]

The police chief was on the radio today saying how he really didn't want to have to enforce these outstanding warrants, but by law had to. A database should have been up and running and used years ago. I also find it amazing that there is no national DNA database for criminals.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Just say NO to Illegal Alien Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!

U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121

U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121

White House comments: (202) 456-1111

Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep

Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[HiTech RedNeck]

alienating aliens? oh the hugh manatee!

[operation clinton cleanup]

some law enforcement officials and immigrant advocates say they fear that people could get picked up because of sloppy record keeping.

This happens to legal citizens all the time, why should illegal invaders get a pass?