All 25 U.S. counties along the Mexican border are now enrolled in the Secure Communities project; federal immigration officials now have access to the prints of every inmate booked into jail in these counties; Secure Communities makes the notification automatic; Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which plans to implement the program nationwide by 2013, says the program has identified more than 262,900 illegal immigrants in jails and prisons who have been charged with or convicted of criminal offenses, including more than 39,000 charged with or convicted of violent offenses or major drug crimes; ICE expects to remove 400,000 illegal immigrants this year; of the 200,000 illegal immigrants deported in the first ten months of fiscal year 2010, 142,000 illegal immigrants were with criminal records and about 50,000 were noncriminals; immigrant advocates say that some counties use Secure Communities to deport noncriminals: the national average of noncriminals flagged by Secure Communities is about 28 percent, but in Travis County, Texas, 82 percent of those removed through Secure Communities were noncriminals

As of 3 August, 3, 494 U.S. counties and local and state agencies in 27 states were using the Secure Communities program to share fingerprints from jail bookings; from October 2008 through June 2010, 46,929 people identified through Secure Communities were removed from the U.S.; of those, 12,293 were considered non-criminals; one immigration advocate says: “ICE has pulled a bait and switch, with local law enforcement spending more time and resources facilitating the deportations of bus boys and gardeners than murderers and rapists and at considerable cost to local community policing strategies, making us all less safe”

An FBI Web page quoted an agent calling Mexico’s drug cartels more violent than al Qaeda; the quote, from an unidentified senior agent based in El Paso, Texas, says, “We think al Qaeda is bad, but they’ve got nothing on the cartels”; the FBI says the quote was taken out of context

The Senate, by unanimous consent, passed a bill last night which increases border security funding by $600 million; the bill includes $300 million for 1,500 additional Border Patrol agents, Custom and Border Protection officers, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel; $196 million for Justice Department programs; $32 million for two more drones; and other money for things like communications equipment and new facilities; the measure will be paid for by increasing fees for H1-B visas

The Senate may yet vote for additional funds for border security before leaving for a month-long recess; Senator Schumer is going to try to push through a bill that provides an additional $600 million for the border; this includes $176 million to hire 1,500 more officers to form a strike force to be deployed in critical areas along the border; Schumer would pay for his measure by raising fees on visas for temporary skilled workers sent to the United States by Indian companies; Republicans, who propose a similar measure, prefer to pay for additional border security by taking unused money from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program, an idea unacceptable to Democrats

Since 27 October 2008 through the end of May 2010, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities; of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape; more than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes; during an eight-month period between 1 October 2009 to 7 June 2010, ICE figures show that 113,453 foreign nations with criminal records had been deported

Citing “the State of Arizona’s right to implement a law its Legislature enacted to address the irreparable harm Arizona is suffering as a result of unchecked unlawful immigration,” the appeal claims only one issue, “whether the district court relied on an erroneous legal premise or abused its discretion” in granting the preliminary injunction

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that global warming could drive millions more Mexicans into the United States in search of work by 2080 due to diminishing crop yields in Mexico; a 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature by 2080, unless agricultural methods have been adapted, would mean crop yields in Mexico would fall by 39 to 48 percent

Under the Obama administration, the focus of the Merida Initiative is shifting away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico’s corrupt law enforcement, courts and other government institutions