Fingerprinting South of Border

Fingerprinting to catch undocumented residents who build up criminal records on this side of the border is making the news, including discussion tonight on the KSL's Nightside Project.

Funny enough, because earlier today I was wondering whether we should encourage more fingerprinting of those who build up criminal records on the other side of the border.

I've been saying if we catch someone crossing illegally, we should call the law enforcement agency back where they are from to check to see if they are wanted. Well, I was speaking to a man from Mexico today, and he noted the drug carriers often have false IDs and fingerprinting is not done much in Mexico.

Perhaps, a first step in fighting crime can be establishing IDs that follow the criminals. If everyone was fingerprinted in Mexico, when a known drug trafficker was nabbed trying to sneak across the border, a false ID would do him no good. His fingerprints could be checked against home country's database, and if there was a match and he was wanted, he would be turned over to officials.

Perhaps most drug lords don't cross the border themselves, anyway, but rather force ordinary folks who are going to try to slip across the border illegally to pack a few drugs along when they come. Human pack horses, they call them.

Our very insistence on not giving Mexico workers legal right to come into the U.S. is perhaps even responsible for this problem. If we just let the workers come in legally, instead of sneaking across between the checkpoints, they would be crossing at the checkpoints.

Make it so none of their visas are finalized in their home countries, but rather make it so they must be certified at the border. That way, they will want to pass through the checkpoint in order to be legal. Now, you just don't bring drugs along if your coming through a legal checkpoint, not if a good and thorough check is going to be made. If we make the immigrant legal, we will take away the pack horses from the drug lords.

And, if we persuade Mexico and other Central and South American countries to have complete fingerprint data banks of their citizens, then when the real drug traffickers do try to slip across, and are caught, they can be turned over to law enforcement officials for prosecution.