Mexico Border Scans Net Criminals, Not Terrorists
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574...
By Tim Gaynor
Jan 14
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Fingerprint scanners deployed on the U.S.-Mexican border to detect terrorism suspects have caught no would-be bombers
but thousands of other criminals, including murderers, kidnappers and sex offenders.
Border Patrol agents have snared 33,000 criminals -- most of them along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico -- since the digital fingerprinting system
linking immigration and FBI (news - web sites) databases went live nationwide in early September.
"It has not only enhanced their ability to detect immigration offenses but also to apprehend suspects wanted for serious crimes such as homicide,
kidnapping and sex offenses," U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mario Villarreal said in a telephone interview.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security began cross-referencing the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, to help
secure the United States from terrorist attack.
The U.S.-Mexico border was widely seen as a soft spot in U.S. security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Border policing was tightened with extra
agents and new technology but so far officials have not announced the capture of a single terror suspect.
Officials say the technology has allowed the Border Patrol to catch more than 100 homicide suspects and more than 200 sex offenders in the last four
months, singled out from more than 200,000 undocumented migrants detained during the period.
Rank-and-file Border Patrol agents like the technology, which is used at border crossings and by agents who pick up illegal migrants in the desert.
"You have a guy who looks like a harmless grandfather, but lo-and-behold when you run his prints through IAFIS it turns out that he's a three-times
convicted child molester from Fresno," said Steve McPartland, a spokesman for Border Patrol in San Diego, California.
"It's the best thing that's happened to us, as it's closed a loophole that in the past allowed potential criminal aliens to be released from our
custody," he added.
Border Patrol agents now scan all 10 fingers of each of the thousands of adult illegal migrants picked up crossing the U.S. border each day, whether
entering from Canada, Mexico or in certain coastal areas.
Previously, agents ran just two prints through the immigration service's biometric system. Now the complete set of prints is simultaneously
cross-matched against an FBI database.
Most of the 33,000 criminals caught so far are former felons who have served out a sentence for minor crimes but, by trying to sneak back into the
United States, commit a new felony.
Felons identified by the system are handed over to federal authorities, if it is a serious crime, or are passed on to police in the state where an
outstanding warrant was issued.
In Arizona, a route used by more than 40 percent of illegal migrants crossing the U.S. border, agents say IAFIS has proved so successful that some
criminals have taken to mutilating their fingertips to avoid identification.
"We occasionally apprehend aliens who have used sandpaper to file off their fingerprints, or have covered their fingertips in glue in an attempt to
avoid recognition," Tucson sector Border Patrol spokesman Charles Griffin said.
"It really doesn't prevent us from figuring out who they are, it just makes us even more determined," he said.
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