U.S. Senator Ron Wyden urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Justice to explain how and why they collected DNA from immigrants, including children.
Vadon this week asked agencies to face agencies to explain the scope, legitimacy and oversight of government DNA collection. In letters to the Justice Department and Homeland Security, Oregon Democrats also criticized what he called the “shocking expansion” of the massive and opaque system, accusing Trump administration officials of even holding down fundamental facts about its operations.
The latest data suggests that the DHS has collected genetic samples from about 133,000 immigrant children and adolescents, a May Wired Report and requested publicly through the Georgetown law’s Freedom of Information Act, Whiden said the government has not provided a “reason” for “permanent collection of children’s DNA samples.”
Their DNA profile now resides in Codis, a FBI database that has historically been used to identify suspects in violent crimes. Critics argue that the system (by default, retains information indefinitely) has never intended to hold genetic data from civilian immigrant detainees, especially minors.
Government data shows that over the past four years, DHS has collected DNA from thousands of minors, including at least 227 children over the age of 13. The vast majority of the majority (more than 70%) have only citizens of four countries: Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti.
“By including the DNA of these children in Codis, their profile is queried every time the database is searched,” Vadon wrote. “These children will consider law enforcement indefinitely as suspects in every investigation of each future crime.”
For years, the U.S. government has steadily positioned non-citizens at the forefront of a large-scale genetic monitoring system, almost entirely DNA collected from immigrants in civil custody while categorizing it as a system primarily used for crime tracking.
The latest analysis of privacy and technology by Georgetown Law Center shows that over 25 million DNA samples have been processed and added to Codis in the past four months alone, accelerating the conversion of anti-crime tools to immigrant DNA warehouses.
Wyden asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to publish details on how to collect, store and use the legal authority. He further urged data on the number of samples collected, especially minors, and asked officials to list what policies DHS currently manages mandatory, exhausted and shared DNA data.
“When Congress authorized the federal government to revolve around DNA collection two decades ago, lawmakers tried to address violent crimes,” Wyden said. “This is not a means for the federal government to collect and permanently retain all non-citizen DNA.”
Justice Department spokesman Natalie Baldassarre acknowledged that the agency had received a probe from Vadern but declined to comment further. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment regarding its practices in harvesting children’s DNA.
