Program that IDs jailed illegal immigrants sought for deportation gets high marks

By N.C. Aizenman
Monday, February 22, 2010; B01

For nearly a year, Fairfax County’s Adult Detention Center has quietly helped pilot a far-reaching program designed to identify criminal illegal immigrants and assist the federal government in removing them from the United States.

Although controversy over civil liberties issues has surrounded similar efforts, the Fairfax program, Secure Communities, has had a lower profile. It automatically checks the digital fingerprints of anyone processed at the jail against immigration databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. If someone is found to be an illegal immigrant whom officials want to deport, an officer of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, calls the jail’s booking desk within an hour to place a “detainer” on the person…

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