By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Border Patrol has arrested tens of thousands of people with criminal records, including suspected murderers, rapists and child molesters, since the agency last year installed a fingerprinting system that identifies criminals among the 1 million illegal migrants apprehended annually.

The high-tech system is part of a broader effort by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create a "virtual border" to stop terrorists and those with criminal pasts from entering the country.

The fingerprints of all detained illegal immigrants are now matched against the FBI's national criminal database through scanners installed at all 137 Border Patrol stations along the Mexican and Canadian borders. To process a person, all 10 fingers are rolled across a scanner, and the digitized fingerprint images are compared against the database's 47 million records. The results usually come back within minutes.

About 30,000 of the 680,000 illegal migrants who were arrested from May through December were identified as having criminal records, compared with about 2,600 during the same period in 2002 — an eleven-fold increase. Criminal illegal immigrants are those with past arrests or convictions for crimes ranging from shoplifting to murder.

Since its start as a pilot program in 2003, the system has identified about 24 people suspected of homicide, 55 of rape and 225 of assault, according to Border Patrol statistics.

The system — installed over a six-month period ending in September — has made it difficult for suspects to flee the country and then return. That was common in the past when people caught crossing the border illegally who had criminal records or outstanding warrants often were simply deported because agents lacked tools to quickly investigate criminal histories.

"You never knew who the people were who you arrested," said Dale Landers, a supervisory agent who patrols the backcountry east of San Diego. "This guy might look like someone who works in the fields, but he could have been a suspected killer."

Some suspects reentered the U.S. and committed more crimes. One of them was Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, a train-riding drifter who had gone on a murder spree in Texas, Illinois and Kentucky and was captured and released by border agents in 1999 despite his presence on the FBI's most-wanted list. He went on to kill four more people before turning himself in.

The surge in arrests probably will strain the ability of federal agencies to house and prosecute criminal illegal immigrants, law enforcement experts say.

How the Border Patrol handles the people it identifies depends on their records. People who have active warrants against them are handed over to the agencies that issued the warrants. Those with violent criminal records can be prosecuted for illegally reentering the country and face potential 20-year prison terms.

People stopped at the border who have prior convictions for nonviolent crimes — the majority of cases — are usually expelled from the country, according to Border Patrol officials.

The technology overhaul, experts say, has greatly enhanced policing on the border. "It's a great step forward … a great aid to law enforcement," said Joseph King, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

The apprehensions provide a potential bright spot for Homeland Security. The department has been criticized for being slow to take advantage of new technologies that confirm the identities of people entering the country.

Wayne Cornelius, a professor and immigration expert at UC San Diego who has been critical of some Border Patrol policies, said access to the FBI database represents progress. "No one can object to that. It's a legitimate use of FBI data," he said.

Similar systems have been installed at many U.S. ports of entry and airports, where only a small percentage of visitors are screened. Eventually, Homeland Security wants to scan the fingerprints of all foreign visitors to the U.S.

The FBI criminal database contains terrorist watch lists as well as information on warrants and criminal histories.

Murder and rape suspects caught in recent months have been wanted by police agencies from Santa Maria, Calif., to New York City, according to Border Patrol officials. Some had been on the run for years.

Police in Jackson, Miss., said they had little hope of catching Selvin Carias, a 25-year-old factory worker who fled to Honduras after he allegedly shot a man in the face during a bar brawl in 2003. He was arrested in October while walking down a dirt road after crossing the border near McAllen, Texas.

"We thought he was gone forever until we got that phone call one day" from the Border Patrol, said Sgt. Joseph Wade of the Jackson Police Department.

Others apprehended included:

•  Leonardo Villareal Roman, a 28-year-old Mexican citizen, who was wanted by police in Santa Maria for allegedly hacking a co-worker to death with a meat cleaver in 1999. When apprehended near Douglas, Ariz., in July 2003, Roman allegedly resisted and tried to take a gun from a Border Patrol agent.

•  Francisco Pegueros-Delvalle, 24, wanted by police in Greenwood, S.C., for allegedly beating to death his 51-year-old roommate with a claw hammer.

•  Juan Chavez-Diaz, 32, a registered sex offender, wanted by police in Petaluma, Calif., for a probation violation and captured in Arizona after crawling under the border fence near Naco. He was convicted in October 2003 of sexually abusing a young relative.

The value of the new technology has been most dramatically demonstrated in Arizona — the main crossing point for illegal immigrants — where agents last October apprehended an average of 40 criminal illegal immigrants per day, according to Border Patrol statistics. Most of those apprehended have been Mexican citizens.

Authorities say the system is also a defense against terrorists entering the country illegally. They would not disclose if any terrorism suspects had been arrested using the technology.

"This is a very good thing in terms of protecting our country against criminals," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. "This system — biometric identification technology — allows Border Patrol agents to quickly identify criminals by working faster and smarter."

For years, criminal immigrants blended in with the masses of others caught along the border and processed for removal from the United States. Agents relied in part on instinct to weed out criminals.

Physical characteristics such as gang tattoos could draw an agent's attention. But checking the criminal histories of those who rarely gave their real names was time-consuming, requiring agents to fax or mail fingerprints to FBI headquarters in Washington — a process that could take weeks. Though the Border Patrol had its own database, it was limited mostly to immigration-related offenses.

Lacking the investigative capability or facilities to house detainees during background checks, the Border Patrol would return to Mexico most of those with criminal pasts.

In at least two instances, the results were tragic. One was the Resendez-Ramirez case. In the other, in 2002, Victor Manual Batres was captured and returned to Mexico without agents learning of his extensive criminal history. After reentering the country, Batres traveled to Oregon, where he allegedly raped two Roman Catholic nuns, killing one of them. He later pleaded guilty to one count each of murder and rape.

Those cases put pressure on federal officials to complete the new system, which had been in the works since 1989. The installation had been delayed in part because the FBI and Border Patrol had developed separate databases that were not integrated.

Implementation wasn't fast-tracked until after the 2001 terrorist attacks when Congress approved the U.S. Patriot Act. The law provided more resources to improve border security against terrorist threats.

Its implementation brought cheers from many in the law enforcement community, who had long said the Border Patrol was letting thousands of criminals slip through its fingers. Other agencies across the nation for years had used the FBI database, which was created in 1999.

"This is the stuff we were talking about all along, but we couldn't get Border Patrol to do anything," said Santa Maria Police Lt. Larry Ralston. "Now that it's started, and we've seen the windfall of arrests they're making, the agencies are going, 'Yeah, that's no surprise.' "

Esther Norma Ayala, 34, who was caught recently after illegally crossing the border from Tijuana, told agents she had no prior arrests. But minutes after she was entered into the database, the monitor flashed a blue bar: a shoplifting charge out of Los Angeles.

Ayala was held for further investigation and then removed from the country after agents determined she was not a violent felon.

Agents don't need to take people at their word anymore, said Steve McPartland, a Border Patrol spokesman.

"Fingerprints don't lie," he said.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Arrests Up

Arrests by the Border Patrol of illegal immigrants who have criminal records or are wanted on outstanding warrants have surged. For the period

May through December:

2002

Violent crimes*: 524

Drug-related crimes: 845

Property crimes: 373

Other crimes**: 870

2004

Violent crimes*: 4,912

Drug-related crimes: 6,589

Property crimes: 5,723

Other crimes**: 12,277

* Includes homicide, rape and assault.

** Includes extortion, fraud, arson, and weapons-related offenses.

Total

2002: 2,612

2004: 29,501

*

Source: U.S. Border Patrol