'Base! How Low Can You Go?

For all the grumbling immigration hawks are doing about the government's job enforcing law, the FBI has added hundreds of thousands of illegals' names to the Crime Information Center Database. But the WaPo's Ernesto Londoño finds some problems:

Two police associations have lobbied against the inclusion, saying that by acting on the warrants, departments risk alienating recent immigrants, a segment of the community that has historically had an uneasy relationship with law enforcement agencies. That, they say, is likely to hinder cooperation from witnesses and victims of violent crimes who are in the country unlawfully.

Separately, immigrant advocacy organizations are suing the government, saying that it had no legal standing to add administrative records to what has traditionally been a database for criminal warrants. Disregarding a deportation order is a violation of administrative, not criminal, law.

Because many outstanding deportation orders date back several years and in some cases don't reflect the person's current immigration status, some law enforcement officials and immigrant advocates say they fear that people could get picked up because of sloppy record keeping. The problem is compounded because some immigrants are ordered deported in hearings that can be held in their absence. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it screens records carefully before adding them to the database.

Oh, that's settled then.