United States Suspends Deportations to Sri Lanka

The U.S. government has temporarily stopped deporting people to Sri Lanka and Maldives, two of the countries devastated by the tsunami disaster. Citizens of those countries with deportation orders will be allowed to stay in the United States until April 7, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department said Friday. Immigration officials also said they will speed deportations to those countries of people who want to get home. Non-criminal immigrants of other tsunami-affected countries will be allowed to petition to remain in the United States. Their requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis, said Dean Boyd, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. If their deportation is suspended, they also can remain until April 7.

The department is looking for other ways to respond to the disaster, said Bill Strassberger, spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services. Options include allowing students from the affected countries to work and allowing people from the countries to work and stay in the United States under temporary protected status, even if they are in the United States illegally. More details will be announced shortly.

J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa Program

• Au-pair and Nanny
• Summer camp counselors and staff
• Post graduate students
• Government visitors
• Medical students coming to the United States as residents or interns
• Foreign scholars sponsored by universities as temporary faculty
• Business and Industrial trainees
• Exchange programs approved by the U.S. Department of State

Mexico Border Scans Net Criminals, No Terrorists

Fingerprint scanners deployed on the U.S.-Mexican border to detect terrorism suspects have caught no would-be bombers but thousands of other criminals, including murderers, kidnappers and sex offenders. Border Patrol agents have snared 33,000 criminals -- most of them along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico -- since the digital fingerprinting system linking immigration and FBI databases went live nationwide in early September.

"It has not only enhanced their ability to detect immigration offenses but also to apprehend suspects wanted for serious crimes such as homicide, kidnapping and sex offenses," U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mario Villarreal said in a telephone interview. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security began cross-referencing the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, to help secure the United States from terrorist attack.

The U.S.-Mexico border was widely seen as a soft spot in U.S. security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Border policing was tightened with extra agents and new technology but so far officials have not announced the capture of a single terror suspect.