FBI, INS to Merge Fingerprint Databases

WASHINGTON —  Responding to anger over the release of a suspected “railroad killer” by immigration agents, the Justice Department outlined a five-year plan costing substantially more than $200 million to merge the fingerprint files of the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Congress ordered the department to devise such a plan when it enacted this year’s budget. It was reacting to the case of a Mexican drifter, Angel Leoncio Reyes Recendis, also known by the alias Rafael Resendez-Ramirez.

On June 2, he was picked up by Border Patrol agents for illegal entry into the United States and sent back to Mexico. Agents said they were unaware he was wanted by Houston police and the FBI for questioning in connection with several murders along rail lines.

He surrendered in El Paso on July 13 after being put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List. Authorities wanted to question him about nine killings along railroad lines in this country, including the deaths of four people whose bodies were found after his June 2 release. He has been charged in seven of those deaths.

The department said Wednesday it plans to put the INS fingerprints on the FBI system and upgrade it so Border Patrol agents can check the records of the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants they seize each year.

When fully implemented after five years, the system “will minimize the possibility that an apprehended or detained alien is incorrectly released,” the department outline said.

But it cautioned that even this system will only be used for immigrants caught entering illegally or suspected of entering illegally. The department said the system would not be used to check “the vast majority of aliens seeking entry to the United States at a port of entry” for criminal histories.

The department said preliminary estimates for the computer hardware and software exceed $200 million. “In addition, INS-related operational costs, which will cover additional space, staffing and equipment, will cause the total to be substantially higher,” the department said.

It added that three more studies will be launched before completing the merger of the files. A criminality study will match a sample of INS fingerprints against FBI criminal fingerprints to estimate the percentage of captured illegal border crossers who have been previously charged with more serious crimes.

An engineering study will refine equipment design and costs. And an operational study will design border procedures and evaluate the effect of lengthened response times on Border Patrol operations.

In another response to the same incident, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday about 37% of the 35,000 criminal immigrants released over the last five years from INS custody went on to commit additional crimes. She did not have a breakdown of how many were violent crimes and how many were minor crimes.

“Although this rate of recidivism is similar to non-alien criminals who were recently released, I’m troubled by the information and I want to address this very important problem,” Reno said.

Committee Chairman Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) said: “This is shocking.”

“We have got to recognize . . . that the same rough fraction holds true for those United States citizens that are released from our jails,” Reno said.

Rogers asked: “Why were they [the illegal immigrants] not deported back to their home country when their time was up here in jail?”

Reno said a number of nations refuse to accept their citizens back when the United States tries to deport them for criminal activity.