Mainstream Media: Yakima jail first to use immigration database

The system is expected to become available in the next month or two, the director of the county Department of Corrections, Ed Campbell, said Friday.

The database goes beyond state and FBI criminal databases to cover people who have had contact with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or who are here illegally.

“We’ll get almost an immediate hit on those people,” Campbell said.

Under the current system, an immigration agent visits the jail regularly to check on inmates with questionable immigration status and to place holds on inmates who face deportation hearings. The jail can also report suspected immigration violators to a 24-hour federal call center, Campbell said.

As of Friday, 89 of about 800 inmates at the county jail were under immigration-related holds. Last year, about 1,000 of 13,404 total inmates were turned over to ICE for further processing.

It’s unclear how many more illegal immigrants will be detected because of access to the ICE database, but Campbell said the system might be particularly helpful in ensuring the jail doesn’t unknowingly release someone whose status should have been reviewed by immigration agents.

ICE routinely does not discuss when individual agencies will launch the database in case of a schedule change. But ICE has been working for several years to spread the jail-based program across the country by 2013.

Campbell began pursuing access to the database months ago at the suggestion of ICE.

The agency had wanted the Washington State Patrol to act as the clearinghouse for all local agencies in the state.

But patrol leaders, in consultation with Gov. Chris Gregoire, took the position last year that the fingerprints remain the property of the local agency. Not wanting to assume an immigration role was a secondary concern for the patrol, an Olympia spokesman said.

Regardless, the patrol has been open to working with counties to establish access to the ICE database through the state network. Yakima County was the first to submit that request, followed by Lewis County, the patrol said Friday.

ICE says more than 1,200 agencies in 41 states are using the Secure Communities database.

Officials credit the program with the removal of more than 72,000 criminal aliens, including more than 26,000 convicted of violent crimes.

Critics of the program say use of the database could result in deportation for even minor arrests and that it might discourage reporting of crimes.

ICE says it’s seen no evidence of a drop in reporting. The program is intended to focus on those violators that pose a risk to public safety, such as violent criminals, drunken drivers and others who appear to be trying to defraud the immigration system, according to ICE.