Linn, Johnson counties link to nationwide fingerprint database

Five Iowa counties today became the latest to link directly to the Department of Homeland Security's national fingerprint database.

“It's not going to change anything procedurally,” said Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner. “We're not actually going to see this taking place. But if there are people we have in custody that are here illegally this would certainly be a good way to find out.”

Johnson, Benton, Black Hawk, and Woodbury counties also became participants today in Homeland Security's Secure Communities program. Funded by the federal government, the program establishes a regular data link between local jails and fingerprint databases maintained by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE officers have detained more than 62,500 foreign-born aliens convicted of a crime since the system began operation in October 2008. Plans call for the system to be operational nationwide by 2013.

Before today, the fingerprints of prisoners being booked into jail were checked by the state Department of Public Safety, Gardner said. Now, they'll automatically be run through FBI database as well.

Johnson County provides its daily inmate list to the ICE office in Cedar Rapids, “but this sounds like it's even less effort,” said Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek.

The fingerprint check should also catch people who give false names when arrested.

“If your subject has any immigration experience with the U.S. government, that'll flag that person's record,” said Shawn Neudauer, ICE regional spokesman in the agency's St. Paul, Minn., office.

ICE or DHS then issues a detainer order, telling local officials to notify them when the subject's case has gone through the court system. The federal agencies will dispatch agents within 48 hours.

“The detainer just tells local law enforcement, we want to talk to this person when you're done,” said Neudauer.

The system also notes aliens present in the country without legal authority and those with lawful status.

Secure Communities is now active in eight of Iowa's 99 counties. It's been adopted completely in 10 states, including those along the southwest border with Mexico.