Janet Napolitano, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and John Morton, assistant secretary of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have announced that ICE’s Secure Communities initiative has identified more than 111,000 aliens criminal aliens in its first year. The Secure Communities initiative is a partnership between ICE, DHS, state and local law enforcement agencies that, through biometric identification, identifies and deports criminal aliens in the U.S.
The two departments credit some of that success to the recent implementations of DHS’s US-VISIT program, which sees foreign visitors identified via biometrics upon entry into the United States, and the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division criminal biometrics program, which was setup to ease the sharing of information between local, state and federal agencies. Other announcements included the recent addition of D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to the Secure Communities program bringing the total to 95 jurisdictions across 11 states. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/thirdfactor-4.gif)
