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Who’s Who At The Border (Another original article by a SCAFO member--—SCAFO members are the best.)
by LINDA WRIGHT Almost every illegal alien who crosses the southern land border and is apprehended, is fingerprinted and photographed, and in a matter of minutes the information is stored in a computer system called IDENT. The Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) field agents can quickly establish the identity of encountered individuals who may have immigration records, or persons suspected of conducting (or being involved) in criminal activity . The IDENT system, located in Washington, D.C. has two databases where information is registered, stored and searched: The Lookout and the Recidivist. The lookout, or (10P) has biographic data of criminal aliens, and the Recidivist or (12PLUS)has the dates and times, locations and photographs of the alien who has been processed at an IDENT terminal on 12 or more occasions. INS Headquarters has set a guideline of 12 illegal crossings before the alien is placed in the Lookout portion of the database. There are approximately 30,000 criminal aliens in the Lookout database and about 200,000 in the Recidivist database. IDENT has been installed in INS offices, Border Patrol stations and Ports of Entry in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The registration process begins when the INS field agents capture a photographic image of the alien and live scans the index fingers. This information is then enrolled into the Recidivist portion of the IDENT database. Upon enrollment, IDENT searches the database for an existing entry for that alien. When the field agent gets a computer generated hit, it is provided to the fingerprint examiners at the AFIS Data Center in San Diego with the candidate's control number. The AFIS center is not actually involved in the enrollment of the IDENT data; however, they query the IDENT database and provide the agents the data relating to the IDENT hit number. When the agent gets a hit with a number starting with “10P”, it indicates the AFIS center has a 10 print fingerprint card on file for that person. A confirmation of the hit is made by the fingerprint examiners at the AFIS Data Center. A hit number, other than 10P, is a Recidivist hit. The AFIS center provides the agent a list that contains the dates, times, locations and photographs relating to each prior processing at an IDENT terminal. There is no biographical or other data on the Recidivist hit. The agent can now set up deportation proceedings for that alien, and a fingerprint card will eventually be entered into the Lookout database. The IDENT system is a valuable tool, in that it detects prior/repeat offenders by identifying a person apprehended in one location as having been previously arrested at another location in a matter of minutes. Every alien who is in the Lookout database is also registered in AFIS, in the Western Identification Network (WIN). Fingerprint examiners at the AFIS Data Center also run AFIS searches for any INS office, or any other law enforcement agency requesting their services. The AFIS center is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This article was originally published in “THE PRINT” |