| Oh. Well. In that case, I guess we should stop... |
Fingerprint scanners deployed on the U.S.-Mexican border to detect terrorism suspects have caught not would-be bombers but thousands of other criminals, including murderers, kidnappers and sex offenders. Border Patrol agents have snared 33,000 criminals - most of them along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico - since the digital fingerprinting system linking immigration and FBI databases went live nationwide in early September. "It has not only enhanced their ability to detect immigration offenses but also to apprehend suspects wanted for serious crimes such as homicide, kidnapping and sex offenses," spokesman Mario Villarreal of the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection said in a telephone interview.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security began cross-referencing the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, to help secure the United States from terrorist attack. The U.S.-Mexico border was widely seen as a soft spot in U.S. security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Border policing was tightened with extra agents and new technology, but so far officials have not announced the capture of a single terror suspect.
Officials say the technology has allowed the Border Patrol to catch more than 100 homicide suspects and more than 200 sex offenders in the last four months, singled out from more than 200,000 undocumented migrants detained during the period. Rank-and-file Border Patrol agents like the technology, which is used at border crossings and by agents who pick up illegal migrants in the desert. "You have a guy who looks like a harmless grandfather, but lo and behold, when you run his prints through IAFIS it turns out that he's a three-times-convicted child molester from Fresno," said Steve McPartland, a Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego, Calif. "It's the best thing that's happened to us, as it's closed a loophole that in the past allowed potential criminal aliens to be released from our custody," he added.