By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

July 27, 2010

Reporting from Mexicali, Mexico

Jason Harrington, wanted on a battery charge in Alameda County, was caught after a chase across rooftops in the Baja California fishing village of San Felipe. Alleged child molester Father Joseph Briceno of Phoenix was handcuffed amid a crowd of parishioners in Mexicali. Tony "The Big Homie" Rodriguez, a Mexican Mafia boss from Indio, hurled threats after being hauled off a street corner by Mexican police posing as junkyard dealers.

All three fugitives had a similar escape plan: Flee to Baja California and leave their troubles at the border. But they ended up back in U.S. custody, as did hundreds of other fugitives in recent years, after being hunted down by Mexican fugitive-hunting squads.

Mexico, offering an anonymous existence in the disorder of the developing world, has long enticed the hunted.

About 1,000 U.S. fugitives wanted for crimes are believed to live in Mexico, according to federal estimates. Many are in resort areas such as Cancun or in border states such as Baja California.

But in recent years, Mexican law enforcement agencies, even some rife with corruption — have stepped up their efforts to send fugitives back north. Fugitive deportations and extraditions from Mexico reached 299 last year, more than triple the number from 2003, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Among those captured this year was Eduardo Gilbert Nevarez, charged with slaying two people in Lynwood in 2001.

Law enforcement agencies in Mexico get mixed grades pursuing high-level, homegrown drug traffickers, but hustling after common criminals from the U.S. is an uncomplicated way to burnish crime-fighting credentials and accommodate U.S. interests.

Most U.S. fugitives, including alleged rapists and murderers, don't possess powerful protectors in Mexico and their rap sheets make them threats on both sides of the border.

The increasing arrest rates, which also include apprehensions of Mexican citizens wanted for crimes in the U.S., reflect generally improving relations between members of U.S. and Mexican law enforcement fugitive squads, who keep one another on speed dial and meet regularly to exchange information and suspects at the border.

Among the most responsive and busiest squads is the Baja California state police fugitive squad, a Mexicali-based seven-member team armed with AR-15 assault rifles that has captured 40suspects so far this year.

"They think they're safe if they make it south of the border. That's just not true," said Mike Eckel, the FBI's international liaison officer in San Diego.

Some of the fugitives are Mexican Americans who blend in easily, though their gang tattoos and accents give away their outsider status. Others settle among the large expatriate communities along the coast, setting up small businesses or living off their past criminal proceeds.

Mexican police bursting through the door is the last thing they expect. Some offer huge bribes or demand to see a lawyer. Others refuse to cooperate.

Alfredo Arenas, the commander of the Baja California state police fugitive squad, is often the first high-ranking police official they meet. He greets some with a warning.

"Here, you don't have the right to remain silent," Arenas, 50, said. "You only have the right to tell me everything I ask you."

It's an effective ploy, said Arenas, that plays on suspects' perceptions of Mexican cops as brutally efficient at coercing confessions. "Our reputation works on our behalf," Arenas said. "We don't even put a finger on the guys and they start talking."

Tracking down suspects was done mostly on an informal basis until the early 2000s, when both countries established or bolstered existing fugitive squads, which are led by bilingual liaison officers.

The Marshals Service is the lead agency in the U.S., though the FBI, California Department of Justice and several local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, also have liaison officers.

The cross-border relationships can go sour in spectacular ways. Last week, the international liaison officer for the Baja California attorney general's office, Jesus Quiñones Marques, was arrested in San Diego on his way to a meeting with his U.S. counterparts. Also arrested last year was Tijuana municipal police liaison agent, Javier Cardenas, a sharp dresser known for toting a gold-plated handgun.

Both are accused of links to organized crime, but had proved themselves useful to U.S. interests over the years. Quinones helped create the Baja California Amber Alert program to find missing children, and Cardenas was known for his uncanny ability to pluck U.S. fugitives from the city's criminal underworld.

Such arrests breed guarded relationships between cross-border groups. U.S. agents generally limit information sharing to the whereabouts of U.S. fugitives, knowing that today's hero could be tomorrow's suspect.

Tips on people's locations usually come from the U.S.: from family members or former associates or people who recognize suspects on shows like "America's Most Wanted." U.S. agents, who can't make arrests in Mexico, pass on the information, including mug shots and arrest warrants, to their counterparts in Mexico.

Sometimes posing as FedEx delivery men or cellphone vendors or junk yard dealers peddling used appliances, officers with the Baja California state police fugitive squad try to confirm the target's identity. It can be straightforward. Regaberto Lopez, a convicted sex offender from Palm Springs wanted on a parole violation charge, had opened a massage studio in Mexicali.

Other times fugitives fall off the map completely. Michael Collins, a sex offender wanted on a charge of attempted murder, was living in a hillside shack outside Ensenada when agents, tipped off by the GPS coordinates on his cellphone, caught him last year.

"We had to walk two miles down a dirt path to find the place," said Fabricio Ruiz, an agent with the Baja California fugitive squad. "He was making a living by operating nets for a local fisherman."

Chasing down the fugitives is a win-win situation for Mexican police, said Arenas, whose squad gets high marks for integrity and professionalism from U.S. liaison officers. U.S. agencies, said Arenas, know how to show their gratitude. His agents often don helmets and flak jackets donated from U.S. police departments, and they travel often to California for training.

"We capture your fugitives, doing Mexican society good by getting rid of the criminal element, and we get the opportunity for training, intelligence and equipment. Anything we can get our hands on," he said.

The arrests have never led to gunfire, though many suspects are considered dangerous. When Rodriguez, the Mexican Mafia boss, was captured in 2007, he offered a $1-million bribe for his freedom. "He kept saying 'You don't know who you're messing with,' " said Ruiz.

Concerned that gang members would try to spring him from police headquarters in Mexicali, the agents headed for the border at Calexico, where they handed him over to FBI agents. Convicted of drug conspiracy charges, Rodriguez is serving a 20-year sentence.

Eckel, the FBI liaison agent, said it was a typically efficient operation for the squad. "They're tireless, relentless and clever," Eckel said. "It doesn't matter what time of day it is. They go."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fugitive-squad-20100727,0,4189932,print.story

Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times

July 27, 2010

The severely disabled, including those "locked in" to their bodies as a result of accidents or disease, may soon have a new way to communicate and move around, Israeli scientists said Monday.

By sniffing, more than a dozen quadriplegics were able to control computers that allowed them to write and to guide a wheelchair, the team reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

The technology relies on the fact that quadriplegics and others retain control of their soft palates, which regulate breathing through the nose. Even people who are not able to breathe on their own can control the new device by blocking and releasing the flow of air forced through their noses by a pump.

The technology "may provide a host of viable solutions for the growing population of individuals who are severely disabled," the team wrote.

The device "is pretty ingenious in giving people who can't control their environment another way to do that," said Dr. Adam Stein, chairman of physical medicine and rehabilitation at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.

It would be particularly valuable for people who have locked-in syndrome, in which they can do little more than flutter an eyelid, he said. For many other patients, however, alternatives exist, including controlling devices through a breathing tube or with the tongue.

The mechanism is relatively simple. Small tubes in the nose monitor sniffs and exhalations, enabling the user to control a computer. To control a wheelchair, for example, two short sniffs signal a forward move, and two short exhalations signal backward. An exhale followed by a sniff signals left, and a sniff followed by an exhale signals right. Similar protocols can move a cursor on a computer screen for writing.

Neurobiologist Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Tel Aviv and his colleagues initially studied the device in 96 healthy people, demonstrating that they could control the movement of a cursor with it as easily as they could with a joystick or mouse. About 1 in 4 could not work the device properly, however.

The researchers then tested the device with a 51-year-old woman who had suffered a stroke seven months earlier; she could not move her limbs and was unable to control her blinking, the most common means of communication in such patients. After training her to control her breaths, they presented her with a writing device that she began using immediately, "initially answering questions, and after a few days [she] generated her first post-stroke meaningful self-initiated communication that entailed a profound personal message to her family."

They next tested the device with a 42-year-old man who had been locked in for 18 years after a car accident. He had attempted to use an eye-tracker to communicate, but stopped because he "did not like it." The new device, he said, was "more comfortable and more easy to use."

The device did not work on the third patient, however, a 64-year-old man who had suffered a stroke four years earlier. The man was severely depressed, and the researchers could not determine "whether this failure reflected a genuine inability or rather disinterest."

The team installed the device on a wheelchair and demonstrated, first with healthy people, then with disabled, that it could be used to navigate a 150-foot obstacle course including sharp turns.

Overall, the device has now been tested successfully in 15 severely disabled patients. The Weizmann Institute has filed for a patent on the technology used in the device and hopes to find a marketing partner.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-disabled-sniffing-20100727,0,5961674,print.story

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By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

July 26, 2010

Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires.

Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States.

Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number could amount to 10% of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.

"Assuming that the climate projections are correct, gradually over the next several decades heading toward the end of the century, it becomes one of the more important factors in driving Mexicans across the border, all other things being equal," said study author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

Of course, Oppenheimer acknowledged, all things will not remain equal. Changes could occur in U.S. immigration and border policy or in Mexico's economy and its reliance on agriculture. But he said this was a simplified first step in studying the effect of global warming on migration.

"Our primary objectives were, No. 1, to give policymakers something to think about and, No. 2, to give researchers a spur to start answering some of the more complicated questions," Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer teamed up with two economists, Alan B. Krueger and Shuaizhang Feng, to study the connection between agricultural decline and migration. They looked at Mexican emigration, crop yield and climate data from 1995 to 2005 to make estimates about the next 70 years.

In the past, Oppenheimer said, Mexican farmers from rural areas fled to the United States when they could no longer grow their crops. If the rising temperatures dry out the land and reduce yield as expected, many more farmers could do the same.

Philip Martin, an expert in agricultural economics at UC Davis, said that he hadn't read the study but that making estimates based solely on climate change was virtually impossible.

"It is just awfully hard to separate climate change from the many, many other factors that affect people's decisions whether to stay in agriculture or move," he said.

Over the last 20 years, Mexico has seen a decline in the percentage of people who live in rural areas, Martin said. But much of that is because of economic growth in the nation. "As countries get richer, people leave agriculture," he said.

Nevertheless, Martin agreed that global warming could make farming more difficult and lead to more emigration.

Douglas Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton, also agreed that climate change could lead to emigration from Mexico, but much of that will depend on labor demand in the U.S.

"Environmental change is not going to produce migrants from Mexico unless there are jobs to go to," he said in an e-mail.

According to the study, other countries and regions dependent on agriculture could also see a similar exodus. Among the areas mentioned are much of Africa, India, Bangladesh and Latin America.

But Massey expressed skepticism about generalizing to other countries, because Mexico and the U.S. have a 60-year migrant history and share a 2,000-mile border. Mexico is also well connected to the U.S. labor demand through social networks.

"When economic shocks like climate change hit other developing countries … displacements from the countryside may happen, but they are not likely to produce so many international migrants," Massey said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig-climate-20100727,0,786549,print.story

by Gregory Rodriguez

July 26, 2010

With the immigration debate heating up — and a federal court case over Arizona's SB 1070 brewing — you'd think that the U.S. was besieged by growing numbers of illegal immigrants. But you'd be wrong.

Despite the heightened rhetoric and the bloodcurdling vitriol surrounding the issue, illegal immigration has actually declined significantly over the last few years. While journalists like to characterize the anger over immigration as a response to facts on the ground — i.e. people are inundated and incensed — the numbers don't bear them out.

In fact, the opposite is true. According to a February report by the Department of Homeland Security, the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. actually dropped by a whopping 1 million between 2008 and 2009, which amounts to the sharpest decrease in 30 years. It was the second year of declining numbers.

Likewise, the Border Patrol reports that apprehensions are down by more than 60% since 2000, to 550,000 last year, the lowest number in 35 years, even though the border is more tightly controlled than ever. As William Finnegan wrote in last week's New Yorker, "The southern border, far from being 'unsecured,' is in better shape than it has been for years — better managed and less porous."

And there's more. Despite the drumbeat about hordes of undocumented Mexicans who have come north to take our jobs, consider this: According to the Pew Hispanic Center, between 2005 and 2008, the number of Mexican migrants arriving in the U.S. actually declined by 40%.

It's not only the number of Mexican illegal immigrants that has dropped. The fact that the U.S. economy is struggling has discouraged high-skilled immigrants from around the globe from looking for jobs in America, and the flow of applicants for H1-B visas, or work permits, has slowed. Before the recession, the entire 85,000 H1-B annual quota would be filled within days of the application date on the first of April. For fiscal year 2010, the quota wasn't reached until December 2009.

Finally, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey last fall revealed a historic decline in the percentage of U.S. residents who are foreign-born — from 12.6% in 2007 to 12.5% in 2008. That represents only about 40,000 people numerically, but it is the first time since the 1970 census — 40 years ago — that the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population has gone down.

So, in the face of all this data showing that legal and illegal immigration is down dramatically, what's all the fuss about? Why has the debate turned so nasty? Why does it seem worse than it did in 1994, during the debate over Proposition 187, California's anti-immigrant ballot measure?

The easy answer, of course, is that the economy is tough and historically people have looked for targets to blame for their feelings of impotence.

But today I think there are other contributing factors. The political discourse overall is pretty horrific, and while immigration has always brought out the worst in people, today's polarized climate only makes matters worse.

Furthermore, the right wing, where much of the anti-immigrant frenzy comes from, no longer has an authoritative voice of reason pressing for decency on the issue. Four years ago, after President George W. Bush unsuccessfully launched his own effort at comprehensive immigration reform, he warned against "harsh, ugly rhetoric." Today, Bush is hardly heard from and the right has an "open borders" policy on over-the-top rhetoric.

Struggling newspapers seeking to engage readers at any cost are also part of the problem. Whereas racist rants were once confined to marginal websites, today many papers — including this one — have opened their online comments section to, well, complete nut-jobs. Allowing vitriolic racial rhetoric to remain on a mainstream website is to give it a level of acceptability. Just last week, in response to my column on the so-called burka ban in France, a rabid commenter proposed that all those crossing the U.S.- Mexico border without papers should be shot on sight. Nice. Such "dialogue" not only pushes out reasonable people, it emboldens the unreasonable ones. By allowing it to be posted, newspapers are presiding over the mainstreaming of anti-immigrant hate speech.

There may be those who see hatred as a justifiable means to an end. Perhaps they hope that all this harsh rhetoric will keep even more illegal immigrants at home. But they'd be silly to think that such invective only makes life harder for immigrants. Unfortunately, it also actively degrades our culture, our public square and our democracy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-vitriol-20100726,0,562386,print.column

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Oshkosh, Wis. - Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator John S. Pistole today launched two major enhancements to general aviation security - the general aviation component of DHS's nationwide "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign, and a streamlined system for vetting passengers and crew on general aviation aircraft entering and exiting the United States through a single, Department-wide process.

"This new component of 'If You See Something, Say Something' will enable general aviation passengers and crew to better recognize and report behaviors and indicators associated with new and evolving threats," said Secretary Napolitano. "We are also transitioning to a streamlined system for vetting travelers on general aviation flights to and from the United States to provide a single, electronic screening process while maintaining robust security standards."

"As we saw in the Times Square attempted bombing, the public plays a key role in security," said Administrator Pistole. "We ask that general aviation pilots and community members join us in helping to keep general aviation secure through 'If You See Something, Say Something' and by helping to develop new programs and initiatives, such as our new streamlined vetting system for international general aviation travel."

Today's announcements came as Secretary Napolitano and Administrator Pistole visited the 2010 Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis., where they met with general aviation industry leaders to discuss ongoing efforts to protect the international aviation system from threats of terrorism.

The "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign - originally implemented by New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority and funded, in part, by $13 million from DHS' Transit Security Grant Program - is a simple and effective program to raise public awareness of indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats and emphasize the importance of reporting suspicious activity to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities.

The general aviation "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign is the second major expansion of the program since July 1, when Secretary Napolitano announced the initiative's first phase, for Amtrak. In the coming months, DHS will continue to expand the campaign nationally with public education materials, advertisements and other outreach tools to continue engaging travelers, businesses, community organizations and public and private sector employees to remain vigilant and play an active role in keeping our country safe.

As part of the general aviation component of "If You See Something, Say Something," DHS is asking the public to report suspicious general aviation activity to TSA's hotline at 1-866-GA-SECURE

Additionally, DHS will streamline the process for pre-screening passengers and crews entering and exiting the United States on general aviation aircraft by allowing pilots and operators of general aviation flights to submit a single manifest to the Electronic Advance Passenger Information System (eAPIS) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) online tool for submitting general aviation data.

This will fulfill both CBP reporting and TSA international waiver requirements, and promote a Department-wide approach to maintaining robust general aviation security standards. DHS expects the streamlined system to take effect on Sept. 1.

"We are encouraged to see TSA and CBP collaborating to streamline the process for our members and eliminate unnecessary paperwork and redundant procedures," said Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association President and CEO Craig Fuller. "This decision demonstrates their commitment to improving the efficiency of the system for all users, and we look forward to working with both agencies to identify additional opportunities for improvement."

"Security has always been a top priority for the business aviation community, and these two new security enhancements reflect an understanding of how our industry operates, and also how government and industry can enhance security without sacrificing mobility," said National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) President and CEO Ed Bolen. "We thank the TSA and DHS for working with industry on these measures, which will be fully effective and workable as a result of our collaboration."

For more information, visit www.tsa.gov or www.dhs.gov

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1280176088861.shtm

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From ICE

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CHARLESTON, S.C. - Twenty-six state and local law enforcement officers from 12 departments in eight states now join a cadre of more than 1,200 sworn law enforcement personnel to enforce immigration law. The officers graduated today following a rigorous four-week training provided by officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) 287(g) program.

The training and the graduation ceremony was held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Charleston. Following the graduation, ICE deputized these 26 officers, which allows them to enforce federal immigration law under ICE's supervision, which is authorized through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

The officers attended the training in accordance with a memorandum of agreement between their respective jurisdictions and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). These officers will be authorized to enforce federal immigration law during the course of doing their normal duties.

The four-week course provided in-depth training on various enforcement topics, including: immigration law, intercultural relations, and how to use DHS databases to help positively identify criminals and immigration violators. This training was scheduled after both ICE and the represented police departments and sheriff's offices signed a 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The agreement and training enable officers to legally identify criminal and illegal aliens that they may encounter, and to initiate removal proceedings for those found to be in the country illegally.

The agencies represented in this graduating class include: the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office (SC), the Charleston County Sheriff's Office (SC), the Collier County Sheriff's Office (FL), the Colorado State Patrol (CO), the Harris County Sheriff's Office (TX), the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (FL), the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office (NC), the Mesa Police Department (AZ), the Prince William County Police Department (VA), the Rhode Island State Police (RI), the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office (VA), and the York County Sheriff's Office (SC).

"Each law enforcement agency that signs on to the 287(g) program represents a force multiplier to help combat crime in local communities," said Ann Yom Steel, deputy director for ICE's Office of State and Local Coordination. "Our ICE agents look forward to working closely with these newly trained officers to our mutual benefit, and to the ultimate benefit of public safety."

The 287(g) program is named after the section of law under the INA that authorizes ICE to train local officers to enforce immigration law. It has emerged as one of the agency's most successful and popular partnership initiatives as more state and local leaders have come to understand how a shared approach to immigration enforcement can benefit their communities.

Currently, 71 local enforcement agencies nationwide have signed MOAs with ICE and now more than 1,200 have been trained to enforce immigration law. More than 172,000 aliens have been removed after being identified by 287(g) officers since January 2006.

The 287(g) program is only one component under the ICE ACCESS (Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) umbrella of services available to assist local law enforcement officers. ICE ACCESS provides local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to partner with ICE to combat specific challenges in their communities.

Other ICE ACCESS enforcement options include the creation of local task forces targeting specific challenges like gangs or document fraud, the presence of a Criminal Alien Program (CAP) team in local detention facilities to identify criminal aliens, or training to utilize the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) which provides officers the ability to inquire about a person's immigration and criminal history.

Law enforcement agencies interested in reviewing the myriad of enforcement programs under the ICE ACCESS program are encouraged to call their local ICE office or visit http://www.ice.gov/ for more information. For additional information regarding 287 (g), please visit http://www.ice.gov/oslc/success_stories .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100723charleston.htm

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From the FBI

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FINGERPRINT TECHNOLOGY Making Two Systems Work as One 07/26/10 Call it the tale of two automated fingerprint systems. The FBI has managed the nation's collection of fingerprints since 1924, but we went fully electronic in 1999 when we launched the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS. This national repository of fingerprints and criminal histories enables law enforcement at every level to quickly match up criminal evidence with criminal identities.

On the other hand (so to speak), the Department of Homeland Security's IDENT—the Automated Biometric Identification System that houses fingerprint records and limited biographic information—was created in 1994 to help U.S. border and immigration officials keep criminals and terrorists from crossing our borders.

Two different systems…with two different missions…for two different sets of users.

But in this post-9/11, globalized world, those charged with protecting the nation need to be on the same page…with appropriate access to each other's information. So that's why the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of State have worked hard in recent years to establish interoperability between these two fingerprint databases.

Phase one. In 2006, DHS and DOJ/FBI began a pilot project with a limited number of agencies, making technical enhancements to IAFIS and IDENT that allowed two-way sharing of information. The FBI and DHS exchanged electronic copies of fingerprint images of certain subsets of data from each system, including known or suspected terrorists, subjects with wanted notices, and visa refusals. Authorized users of each system were then able to access those records.

The result: law enforcement and border and immigration officials each gained near real-time access to information from both systems on non-U.S. persons they encounter—whether at a police booking station, a border crossing, or at a U.S. Embassy visa office abroad.

Phase two. In 2008, we began expanding the concept, implementing a technological fix that would support a direct search request from authorized users of the full IDENT and IAFIS systems through a single interface. Right now, more than 450 jurisdictions in 26 states are participating in phase two, with more being added all the time.

Eventually, our interoperability plan calls for every IDENT and IAFIS user—local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement and authorized non-criminal justice agencies across the country—to have this same ability.

Within the first and second phases, we've already seen some successes :

• Miami police recently arrested a man for battery and ran his prints through both systems. It turned out he was a Mexican native who had been removed from the U.S. twice for other crimes. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received a notice about the search, and he was deported.
  
  
• Police in Roxbury, Massachusetts arrested a man on firearm and drug charges. An IDENT/IAFIS search identified him as a Jamaican citizen previously removed from the U.S. who was also a known member of a violent street gang and a suspect in three murders. ICE was notified and began proceedings to have him removed from this country.

In recognition of their innovative solutions to align our automated identification fingerprint systems, members of DHS' U.S.–VISIT team (U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program) and the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division team were recently honored with the ICE Assistant Secretary's Protecting the Homeland award.

Congratulations to everyone involved…but the real winners are the American people, who are safer in their cities and neighborhoods.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/july10/fingerprints_072610.html

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