Law Enforcement Support Center

Name-Based Systems Limit Ability to Identify Arrested Aliens Gao ID: AIMD-95-147 August 21, 1995

Identifying persons arrested for aggravated felonies as aliens is critical to joint efforts by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and local law enforcement agencies to prevent the release of these persons before INS can take action. INS' Law Enforcement Support Center, whose pilot operations began in July 1994, is an attempt to provide this identification capability. This approach, however, it inherently limited by the name-based systems that it depends upon. Until INS successfully implements a system that identifies persons on the basis of biometric information, such as fingerprints, INS' ability to quickly identify arrested persons as aliens will be limited. INS' planned move to an automated fingerprint database is intended to address the need for better ways to identify persons who will be processed for either enforcement or benefit purposes. Further, accurate and complete criminal alien data in INS' Deportable Alien Control System and the Central Index System are essential. Unless INS' data reliability problems are resolved, INS risks making decision on the basis of inaccurate and incomplete information.

GAO found that: (1) LESC allows law enforcement agencies continuous access to INS data, but LESC electronic searches cannot conclusively identify aliens arrested for aggravated felonies, since name-based data can be easily falsified; (2) LESC has initiated enforcement actions on 1,935 aliens, but released 920 additional aliens for various reasons; (3) at least 46 of the 920 aliens released had been arrested for aggravated felonies; (4) INS is planning to fully implement its INS Identification System in 1999 to provide a unique and effective identifier for aliens encountered for enforcement or benefit purposes, but it will include only known criminal aliens in INS databases; (5) INS has recently implemented an initiative to identify criminal aliens entering the country illegally, based on fingerprint data for criminal aliens deported from California; and (6) INS omitted important criminal alien information from certain databases, causing them to be incomplete and inaccurate.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.