Biometric database helps end 'voluntary return' of illegal immigrants

Government authorities are using a Homeland Security Department immigration database that tracks past arrests to end a policy under which illegal border crossers were allowed to return home without penalty, the top Customs and Border Protection official said on Thursday.

In the past, undocumented aliens who were arrested but had no criminal history on record or were using an alias were granted "voluntary return." But now authorities have the tools to catch forged identities and quickly pull up data on an individual's previous infractions. The IDENT database captures fingerprint data for all foreign nationals entering the United States -- information that is hard to fake -- and permits government officials to cross-check them against the digital prints of known offenders.

"No mas on voluntary returns," said Alan Bersin, commissioner of Homeland Security's CBP bureau, using the Spanish word for "more." He was speaking during a talk on the state of U.S.-Mexico border security that was hosted by the left-leaning Center for American Progress think tank.

"We're beginning to see a deterrent effect in who tries to cross again and where they cross," Bersin said.

Before IDENT existed, authorities would arrest someone at, for example, a soccer field, bring the person into a police station and then write down on a notecard the individual's distinguishing physical features, such as tattoos, he said. Such verbal descriptions, often filed in boxes, were not a reliable means of identifying illegal immigrants, Bersin explained.

"The ability to biometrically measure who is crossing [by using the IDENT system] can tell you how many times that person has been arrested and what consequences have been applied to that person," he said. "This permits us to apply consequences that in the past we could not," including deporting the person to Mexico, Bersin added.

Of the 120,000 undocumented immigrants that are arrested this year, perhaps fewer than 60,000 of them will be unique individuals, he said, noting the large number of repeat transgressors.

There are exceptions to the crackdown on voluntary returns. In Arizona, juveniles and persons crossing for certain humanitarian reasons will not be prosecuted for illegally entering the United States, Bersin said.

But the new system is not foolproof. This spring, the Homeland Security inspector general found that some fingerprints collected by DHS agencies are not entered into IDENT. In addition, matching DHS records with law enforcement data from the FBI can take up to 72 hours, according to a June 2010 Government Accountability Office report.

The FBI is switching to an advanced biometric database that is supposed to compare prints more quickly and accurately, bureau officials have said.