The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - The Department of Homeland Security yesterday unveiled new computer workstations that allow Border Patrol agents to tap into the FBI's fingerprint database, overcoming a technological hurdle that lasted for years.
At San Diego's Brown Field station, Senior Patrol Agent Arnie Villarreal rolled his finger over a glass plate that glowed red as his print was scanned and digitally stored.

The new system scours 43 million records in the FBI's criminal database for a match. If there's a hit, the FBI computer spits out the person's criminal history.

The whole process takes 10 to 15 minutes.

Before the computer networks were linked, Border Patrol agents had to take a paper imprint to a Border Patrol office in Chula Vista, a south San Diego suburb.

"It was a very time-consuming process," agency spokesman Richard Kite said. "It could take hours."

The bureau said that workstations at all 136 Border Patrol stations have access to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, known as IAFIS.

The deployment marks a "significant step" toward getting the databases of the FBI and the Homeland Security Department - which includes the Border Patrol - to talk to one another, said Paul Martin, the Justice Department's deputy inspector general. His office has repeatedly cited delays in linking the two networks.

But Martin noted that while Homeland Security workstations can access the FBI files, the reverse isn't true. The inspector general reported in March that the FBI and local law enforcement agencies were not expected to have access to Homeland Security's Automated Biometrics Identification System, or IDENT, until 2008.

IDENT lists people who have been deported. It matches only two index fingers (and a photograph), while the FBI's system requires all 10 fingers be scanned.