WASHINGTON, March 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. Coast Guard fingerprinting program has apparently cut into the flow of illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic.
The pilot program involves taking electronic fingerprints of people picked up on boats between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and instantly comparing them to prints in a digital database of suspects who have been deported or have criminal records, USA Today reported.
Civil right advocates say they have some concerns about people who aren't under arrest being fingerprinted en masse; however the Coast Guard says the number of immigrants picked up in the region has declined significantly since the program was launched from around 3,000 in 2006 to less than 1,500 last year.
Tom Amerson, a Coast Guard researcher who came up with the idea, said the program acts as a deterrent to unsavory characters thinking about entering Puerto Rico illegally.
"Before, it was pretty much a ferry service to repatriate them," Amerson told USA Today Tuesday. "But now there's a consequence that they can serve jail time."
