Secure Communities Coming to Massachusetts

, a federal program that identifies illegal immigrants who are charged with crimes for deportation, will be introduced this month in Massachusetts.

"I think it's a good thing," said Westborough Police Chief Alan Gordon. "If it gets violent offenders off the street, then I'm all for it."

The Secure Communities program, run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will begin next week, May 15, in Massachusetts. New Hampshire started the program yesterday.

Under the program, local police will continue to send fingerprints of people arrested for offenses to the FBI. But, under Secure Communities, the finger prints are then sent to Homeland Security, where they are matched against information in that agency's immigration databases.

The program sends fingerprint information to the federal immigration authorities for all people arrested, regardless of their race or ethnicity. This then enables the immigration agents to contact local police if they want the suspect held.

"The procedure is really not that different from what we do now," Gordon said. "We send the fingerprints to the FBI and will be notified usually within 20 minutes if the information we send corresponds with information on file." He said that he hopes the additional check through the Homeland Security database will also work in a short timeframe.

Sen. Jamie Eldridge has been against the federal program, stating a year ago that the governor needed to rebuild his credibility with the immigrant community. The only way to do that, he said, was to not sign the proposal.

US Sen. Scott Brown, a supporter of the program, told The Boston Globe Tuesday it is "an important tool in keeping our citizens safe and giving our law enforcement officials, especially the sheriffs, the tools and resources they need to do their jobs."

"The people of Massachusetts will finally have the protection they deserve from violent criminals who have entered our country illegally," Brown told the Globe.

Gordon said that some critics in the police community are concerned that the new system will keep illegal immigrants from reporting crime. "They may be victims and afraid to report [a crime]," he said.

Although the Massachusetts Governor has been opposed to the federal Secure Communities program, it was scheduled to start in 2013.

Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for ICE, told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, “Secure Communities has proven to be the single most valuable tool in allowing the agency to eliminate the ad hoc approach of the past and focus on criminal aliens and repeat immigration law violators. In fiscal year 2011, for the first time ever, 55 percent of all of ICE’s removals were convicted criminals and over 90 percent of all removals clearly fell into” other high priorities for removal.