In brief: Deportations from U.S. hit record

Washington – More than 392,000 illegal immigrants were deported from the United States in fiscal year 2010, the highest number in the country’s history, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Wednesday.

Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton attributed the higher numbers to increased border enforcement, workplace enforcement and an expansion of the department’s Secure Communities program.

Madison, Wis. – An electronic monitoring system tracking sex offenders, parolees and others shut down, leaving authorities in 49 states blind to offenders’ movements for about 12 hours, authorities said Wednesday.

A system operated by Boulder, Colo.-based BI Incorporated unexpectedly hit its data storage capacity Tuesday morning, which blocked notifications to prisons and other corrections agencies on about 16,000 people being tracked, BI spokesman Jock Waldo said.

Tracking devices continued to record movement, but corrections agencies couldn’t immediately view the data. The company has substantially increased its data storage capacity and hasn’t heard of any safety issues, Waldo said. People being monitored were unaware of any problems.

Columbia, S.C. – A South Carolina jail was sued Wednesday over its policy barring inmates from having any reading material other than the Bible.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the policy on behalf of Prison Legal News, a monthly journal on prison law. The 16-page complaint says officials at the Berkeley County jail in Moncks Corner, about 100 miles southeast of Columbia, are violating several of the magazine’s and inmates’ constitutional rights, including free speech, freedom of religion and due process.