VCT HOME
http://news.excite.com/news/u/990627/16/news-serialkiller-ins
INS scrutinizes procedures
Updated 4:25 PM ET June 27, 1999 HOUSTON, June 27 (UPI) In the wake of its unwitting release of suspected serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez on June 2, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is considering ways to plug bureaucratic holes that let him slip through the agency's fingers.
But officials are unsure of what changes are needed or can be made to prevent another missed opportunity. The Houston Chronicle today quotes INS spokesman Tomas Zuniga as saying: "At the time he was apprehended, we had no idea that he was wanted by the FBI. He was operating under another alias."
The Border Patrol suspects the Mexican drifter of committed two more murders in Texas and two in Illinois after his release.
Officials said his fingerprints were on file at the National Crime Information Center and the Texas Crime Information Center at the time of his release. But his fingerprints were run only through one INS system, IDENT, which only checks on how many times a subject has been detained for an illegal border crossing. It is not automatically cross-referenced with the NCIC or the Texas Crime Information Center.
In order to match prints taken from Resendez-Ramirez while he was in custody with those on a crime file, agents would have had scan his prints into a computer and upload them for a costly and time-consuming search for a match with the NCIC or the TCIC.
The INS says that 1.5 million illegal aliens are processed at the Mexican border annually, and it is not agency policy to run prints on every undocumented worker. Resendez-Ramirez was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list last week, and more than $100,000 in rewards have been posted for information leading to his capture.
FBI Special Agent Rolando Moss in Houston says investigators continue to chase down tips in the case. "We're just covering leads," he said. "We've got about 3,000 leads right now. Everything we get, we're looking at."