Homeland Security Watch

News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security

August 8, 2007

US-VISIT Opens Renovated Biometric Support Center

Filed under: Border Security, Technology for HLS — by Jonah Czerwinski on August 8, 2007

US-VISIT last week opened a newly remodeled Biometric Support Center (BSC) in
San Diego, Calif. The BSC/West was established in 1995. Initially, it was opened to provide fingerprint verification services to Immigration and Naturalization Service.  The BSC/West operates 24/7 with a staff of twenty-seven.  The BSC/West counts the following metrics:

•        54,962 fugitive warrant verifications.

•        622,000 fingerprint comparisons in FY 2007.

•        81 verifications of unknown deceased subjects in FY 2007. 

2 Comments »

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August 8, 2007 @ 8:12 am

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Comment by Bill

September 8, 2007 @ 11:28 pm

The BSC-West regularly performs latent fingerprint searches for any law enforcement agency that makes a request. They have access to the old INS legacy files in addition to the new USVISIT fingerprint files. This, coupled with the fact it (USVISIT) is growing by leaps and bounds every day, will soon make the DHS fingerprint database larger than the FBI’s.

The DHS fingerprint database should be high on the list for any police department (law enforcement agency) trying to solve major crimes where a foreign national is involved. It is easy to submit the prints for search and it does not cost the submitting agency anything.

For additional information on submission requirements contact the BSC-West Latent Print Unit at lpu@dhs.gov.

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