Ridge: Border agents will get access to fingerprint databases this year

A majority of the nation's border agents will be able to access key FBI fingerprint databases by the end of 2004, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday.

Ridge told the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee that up to 70 percent of border agents in the Customs and Border Protection bureau will have access to two key FBI databases by the end of the year -- the IDENT database and the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). However, a recent report from the Justice Department's inspector general revealed that DHS and the Justice Department are still years away from integrating and sharing access to the fingerprint verification systems.

"The FBI, the DHS and local law enforcement agencies still are far from a fully integrated system that will automatically check the fingerprints of apprehended aliens against all IDENT and IAFIS records," the report said. "According to the latest schedule, the deployment of a fully integrated fingerprint system is at least four years away. We believe this continues the significant risk that aliens who should be detained ... instead will be released because border patrol agents will not learn of their significant criminal or deportation history."

An official with the inspector's general office said the four-year timeframe was reported by DHS and Justice. Ridge said the schedule is "unacceptable."

"I think we can make a significant number of connections between the points of entry in the border patrol and the databases this year with the dollars available in the budget," Ridge said. "I think that can get us up to 65 to 70 percent of those connections, and we'll do our best internally to come up with additional dollars to connect them without seeking more funds from [Congress]."

"We will not have an integrated defense at the border until all the databases, be it terrorist related or criminal related, are available to that border patrol agent," he added.

Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said Homeland Security and Justice should have implemented a system to allow border agents to access the databases by now, saying "bureaucratic bungling" is responsible for the delay.

"I can't for the life of me imagine why we don't have border patrol access to those fingerprint files of the FBI," Rogers said. "If it takes more money we'll try to find that from some other source, but this is intolerable. If we can't check for criminal records of people coming across the border-for terrorists as well as plain old criminals-what good is the system?"

Ridge said one of the problems in sharing the databases is that funding for the necessary technology has been placed in Justice's budget. He said DHS now has funding of its own for the effort, and will put $4 million toward developing an integrated system this year.

Rogers said Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft must develop an arrangement to integrate and share the databases. He said some members of the House Appropriations Committee also sit on oversight committees for Justice, and will exert pressure on the department and the FBI to cooperate more fully with DHS if necessary.

The inspector general report said that to implement the data-sharing initiative, Justice should:

• Develop and implement a memorandum of understanding with Homeland Security to guide the integration of IDENT and IAFIS.
• Assign responsibility for coordinating and overseeing the integration project to a senior Justice official.
• Expeditiously develop a the next version of the IDENT/IAFIS Integration Project, which will provide apprehension and criminal history information to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
• Work with Homeland Security to update the FBI's "wants and warrants" information with IDENT on a daily, rather than biweekly, basis until IDENT and IAFIS are fully integrated.
• Coordinate with Homeland Security to make sure that the criminal histories of all aliens who turn up in IAFIS are reviewed by the Customs and Border Protection bureau.