Border
Patrol officials began using our biometric
tool in the summer of 2001, connecting two
of their facilities in San Diego to our
Criminal Justice
Information Services Division facility
in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Congress sought
the deployment to supplement the Border
Patrol's 10-year-old biometric database
called IDENT, which relies on matching an
individual's index fingers, rather than
the comprehensive 10-finger prints made
by IAFIS.
With
IAFIS in place, Border Patrol agents can
simultaneously check IDENT's specialized
databases and IAFIS's 49 million sets of
prints.
Here's
how it works: When a Border Patrol agent
detains someone, either in the field or
at border stops, the agent can take a live-scanned
fingerprint of the suspect on the spot.
The technology instantly compares the prints
against both databases. Results that may
have once taken days or weeks are now available
within minutes.
About
12 percent of Border Patrol searches result
in criminal "hits," according
to Department of Justice figures. Of those
positive IDs, 85 percent are found by IAFIS.
The technology will soon be able to process
as many as 20,000 inquiries a day at Border
Patrol stations and hundreds of ports of
entry.
Office
of the Border Patrol chief David Aguilar
said during congressional testimony in July
that the FBI's fingerprint database has
become integral to protecting U.S. borders
from terrorists and criminals alike: "With
immediate access to IAFIS, our agents have
identified hundreds of egregious offenders,
including murderers, rapists, kidnappers,
and drug traffickers, who otherwise may
have gone undetected. It has demonstrated
significant steps towards improving national
security and greatly enhancing our ability
to secure our nation's borders."
Resources:
FBI's Integrated
Automated Fingerprint Identification System
| More
fingerprint stories
Photo
courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Gerald L. Nino.
