An immigration reform activist thinks the Obama administration has an ulterior motive for expanding a program started by President George W. Bush.
The program -- known as Secure Communities -- matches the fingerprints of inmates held in local jails to federal immigration databases, with the goal of pinpointing deportable illegal immigrants before they are released from custody. Inmates in federal and state prisons already are screened. In October 2008, as part of a pilot program, 48 counties across the country began to screen local jail bookings, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says the program will be used in nearly all local jails by the end of 2012. Authorities estimate that if fingerprints from all 14-million bookings in local jails across the country were screened, about 1.4-million "criminal aliens" would be found. Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at Numbers USA, believes there is an ulterior motive behind the Obama administration's move to expand the program. "This administration, including the secretary of Homeland Security, believes that if they can shift the focus of all immigration enforcement to just 'criminal aliens,' then they will be able to look like they're being tough on enforcement without actually affecting the vast majority of illegal aliens in this country," she states. Jenks says while it is important to focus on criminal aliens, she believes at the same time ICE needs to do general enforcement in order to send the message that no illegal alien will get away with living in the United States -- not just those who commit a crime in addition to illegal entry.
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