 SOUTHWEST BORDER IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM DRAWS BOTH PRAISE AND CRITICISM
According to immigration enforcement officials, IDENT, the fingerprinting system used along the southwest border to identify illegal entrants, has been a complete success, and has led to the identification of many people who have committed crimes in the US. The database contains information on 290,000 criminal aliens and 1.3 million other people who have attempted illegal entry.
Civil rights attorneys and immigration advocates, however, view the system with trepidation. Border enforcement officials make the decision of whether to put someone in the database. This is a problem because most people stopped near the border are neither criminals nor illegal entrants. Often, US citizens are accused of possessing fraudulent documents and are entered into the database.
The information contained in the IDENT database includes fingerprints, a digital photograph, biographical information, and information about physical identifying characteristics, such as scars and tattoos. People entered into the database are also given an identification number. When this happens to US citizens, it seems much like a national identity program, a concept that has been extremely controversial.
The primary purpose of the IDENT system is to identify repeat border-crossers so it is known how many individual people are attempting to cross without counting the same person over and over. The system should also provide officials with information about where the primary areas for attempting to cross are located and thus allow more efficient use of border resources.
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