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WASHINGTON-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton today announced that ICE's Secure Communities initiative-a partnership with local law enforcement agencies that uses biometrics to identify and remove criminal illegal immigrants-identified more than 111,000 criminal illegal immigrants in local custody during its first year, including more than 24,000 in Arizona.

Since its inception in October 2008, Secure Communities has identified more than 11,000 illegal immigrants charged or convicted with Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping-1,900 of which have already been removed from the United States-and more than 100,000 illegal immigrants convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes.

In Arizona, four counties - Pinal, Yuma, Yavapai and Maricopa - are currently participating in Secure Communities. ICE has identified more than 4,900 illegal immigrants charged or convicted with Level 1 crimes and more than 20,000 charged or convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes. More than 500 Level 1 illegal immigrants and more than 4,000 Level 2 and 3 illegal immigrants have already been removed from Arizona under Secure Communities.

"Secure Communities provides our local partners with an effective tool to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety," said Secretary Napolitano. "We will continue to expand these partnerships to provide a force multiplier for ICE's immigration enforcement efforts across the country."

"Access to timely and accurate information about state and local arrests is critical to identifying dangerous criminal aliens," said Morton. "By utilizing unique biometric information Secure Communities dramatically increases the accuracy of criminal alien identifications."

The results announced today are the product of enhanced interoperability between DHS' US-VISIT and the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division criminal biometrics program-technology that streamlines information sharing to enhance public safety.

At today's announcement, Secretary Napolitano and Assistant Secretary Morton projected that Secure Communities will have a presence in every state by 2011 and be available to every law enforcement agency in the nation by 2013. Currently, DHS prioritizes the deployment of Secure Communities to jurisdictions with the highest volume of dangerous criminal illegal immigrants.

Secure Communities operates jointly between DHS, the Department of Justice and participating law enforcement partners to automatically check the digital fingerprints of individuals arrested and booked at the local level against DHS' biometrics-based immigration records in addition to FBI databases-allowing ICE to take appropriate action to ensure that dangerous criminal illegal immigrants are not released back into communities.

For more information, visit www.ice.gov.