Florida has started screening every teenager at state detention centers to weed out those who might be in the country illegally.

The Department of Juvenile Justice will keep a database of juvenile offenders who are not citizens and will refer suspect names to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation.

About 95,000 juveniles are arrested each year in Florida for crimes ranging from petty vandalism or fights with siblings to serious offenses like rape and manslaughter. Most are released to their parents, but those who have felony charges, repeat arrests or a history of running away are sent to one of Florida's 26 juvenile detention centers to wait for trial or a spot in a longer-term residential program.

The state will limit its immigration checks to about 34,000 teens who are committed to its detention centers each year, state juvenile justice spokeswoman Cynthia Lorenzo said.

Last week, state employees began running names of all detained teens against a federal database at the Law Enforcement Support Center, which holds information from the Department of Homeland Security, the National Crime Information Center and state agencies across the country. The department soon will hire a full-time employee to make the checks.

State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, included $48,915 in Florida's budget to pay the salary of the employee. Aronberg said he hoped to prevent cases like that of Milagro Cunningham, who is charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl from Lake Worth and leaving her in a landfill to die.

Cunningham was here on an expired visa from the Bahamas but had not been deported despite previous juvenile arrests for burglary.

Until this month, state efforts to check the citizenship of juvenile offenders were less comprehensive. Department of Juvenile Justice probation officers, who help process teens dropped off by police, asked each youth whether he or she was a citizen. Children who said yes were assumed to be telling the truth.

Those who admitted they were not citizens, or were flagged by police as possibly being here illegally, were reported to immigration authorities, Lorenzo said.

In the last legislative session, state Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando, and Sen. Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale, filed bills that called for more sweeping changes. The first versions of both bills required circuit juvenile court judges to order the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice to turn over custody of offenders here illegally to federal authorities.

But only the federal government has the authority to deport, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have the resources to accept most of the children referred by the state. The agency typically focuses on suspected terrorists and adult criminals.

A staff analysis for Antone's bill said state Department of Juvenile Justice employees who tried to report teens they believed were in the United States illegally did not get return phone calls from ICE despite leaving detailed messages.

"When a person does answer the call, the response is 'frequently that delinquents are not a high priority,' " the analysis said.

Both bills died in committee.

Some have criticized the plan to screen every detained teen, saying it is a hollow political move meant to capitalize on anti-immigrant feelings.

Carlos Martinez, chief assistant public defender for Miami-Dade County, said many arrests of children are made in public schools. Not all teens sent to detention centers are threats to public safety, he said, and it is unclear what good screens will do "when all are admitting the Department of Homeland Security will do nothing with the information."

Aronberg said he hopes a new employee focused on the issue will prompt state and federal governments to begin working together to deport the most serious young criminals.

"I think there will be a lot more referrals and a lot more action taken," Aronberg said.