As if the regular detainment of children isn’t bad enough, documents show that U.S. immigration authorities are adding their DNA to a criminal database. In less than five years, the U.S. has collected DNA samples from over 130,000 minors, including children as young as four.
Since 2020, the US Customs and Border Patrol has ramped up its contributions to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. CODIS stores DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scenes, and missing persons cases for local, state, and federal law enforcement use. The actual, physical DNA samples are stored indefinitely by the federal government. Excluding forensic ones, CODIS currently has 23 million DNA profiles, and as many as 133,539 of them belong to detained children and teenagers, according to documents reviewed by Wired.
According to Wired’s report, CBP collected samples of between 829,000 and 2.8 million people from October 2020 to the end of 2024. This came after 2020 updated regulations surrounding DNA collection from the Department of Justice that removed the Department of Homeland Security’s exemptions. The California Law Review critiqued the DOJ’s decision as one that “may be the first to result in the government’s widespread, permanent retention of genetic materials based solely on a status other than a criminal arrest or conviction.”
To comply with the DOJ’s orders, CBP launched a pilot program that same year to begin collecting more samples from detained immigrants. At the time, CBP said it would collect samples from people between the ages of 14 to 19. However, CBP’s policy gives officers some discretion when it comes to younger children and they have taken advantage of that. Per Wired, CBP obtained samples from as many as 227 children under the age of 13. In one case, CBP officers in El Paso, Texas sent samples from a 4-year old child to the FBI for processing.
“In order to secure our borders, CBP is devoting every resource available to identify who is entering our country. We are not letting human smugglers, child sex traffickers, and other criminals enter American communities,” Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs at CBP, told Wired. “Toward this end, CBP collects DNA samples for submission to [CODIS] from person in CBP custody who are arrested on federal criminal charges, and from aliens detained under CBP’s authority who are subject to fingerprinting and not otherwise exempt from the collection requirement.”
However, Stephanie Glaberson, the director of research and advocacy at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology, told Gizmodo via email, “The revelation that CBP collected DNA from a 4-year-old and added it to CODIS brings the absurdity of the government’s DNA program into sharp relief.”
Recently, the Center released a report stating that CBP has added 1.5 million DNA profiles to CODIS since 2020 where they are now housed under the “offender” label. Overall, ICE and CBP’s number of collected samples has increased by 5,000 percent but those numbers are even more shocking when broken down into smaller periods of time. According to Wired, officers in Laredo, Texas submitted as many as 3,930 DNA samples to the FBI with 252 listed as 17 or younger. Every sample was collected on a single day in January 2024.
Two years ago, the FBI requested a massive increase in funding to continue maintaining the system. With immigration authorities’ contributions, CODIS is likely to continue ballooning exponentially. As Georgetown’s report explained, there are several limitations on criminal law enforcement obtaining DNA samples. When it comes to immigrants, however, the only limitation is that they must be detained.
“The meaning of the term ‘detained’ in the immigration context is notoriously broad, vague, and ever-shifting,” the report stated. “And unlike in the criminal legal systems, ICE and CBP agents do not have to get judicial authorization to detain someone. There is no process for checking to make sure that every time they do detain someone, they meet constitutional requirements.”
“The lack of procedural safeguards means that DHS can amass data at a much quicker rate than police can, but all of the DNS DHS takes is accessible to the police,” the report added.
“No matter the age of the individuals compelled to hand over this most sensitive information, this program is morally bankrupt and unconstitutional,” Glaberson told Gizmodo. “Collecting migrants’ DNA like this serves no legitimate immigration purpose. What it does is place these individuals, their families, and communities under watch for life, and brings us all one huge step closer to genetic surveillance.”
