FACT SHEET on Currrent Practices and "Secure Communities"

FACT SHEET:
HOW DOES “SECURE COMMUNITIES” FIT IN WITH CURRENT PRACTICE IN MoCo?

Current Practice:

There are four partially overlapping procedures.

1. The MoCo Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation fingerprints arrested persons (except for minor violations like traffic offenses) and sends the fingerprints to the FBI.

2. Once a week, the Central Processing Unit of the Dept of Corrections and
Rehabilitation sends a list of all persons born outside the United States to ICE.
This is called the CAP (Criminal Alien Program) and participation is voluntary.

3. When police stop persons (traffic stops and other stops), they send the person’s name and date of birth to the FBI (NCIC). The NCIC now has in it civil ICE detainers*, to hold people for deportation. If there is a “hit” for one of these civil detainers, MoCo holds the person for 48 hours for ICE to pick them up. Holding for civil detainers (as opposed to criminal warrants) is voluntary.

4. When the police arrest anyone for a serious crime (one that is on a written list of serious crimes), the police call ICE and tell them. This is a Montgomery County program put in effect by County Executive Leggett.

If “Secure Communities” goes into effect:
In addition to the above, in item 1, the FBI will forward the fingerprints to ICE.

* Civil ICE detainers were put in the NCIC, a criminal information database) by former Atty General Ashcroft. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has asked current Atty General Holder to remove the civil detainers, because they damage the police-community cooperation necessary to fight crime. Chief Manger has testified before congress in favor of removing the civil detainers, comparing this to getting the local police involved in Federal Income Tax Enforcement. He could tell his police today to only honor Criminal detainers, but neither he nor Ike Leggett is willing to take this useful anticrime step