ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
ICE collected nearly 1 million people's DNA last year, including young children, and funneled the genetic profiles into an FBI database built for criminal investigations. The expansion of DNA collection has sparked lawsuits and congressional scrutiny.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
ICE collected nearly 1 million people's DNA last year, including young children, and funneled the genetic profiles into an FBI database built for criminal investigations. The expansion of DNA collection has sparked lawsuits and congressional scrutiny.
Imagine you're at the border, and immigration officers take a swab of your cheek to get your DNA. They're putting it into a big database that can be used to solve crimes. But the problem is, most people being held in immigration custody haven't done anything wrong, and they shouldn't be in a database meant for violent criminals.
Analysis
A Sweeping Expansion of DNA Collection
The Department of Homeland Security has become the largest single source of new genetic profiles in the nation's criminal DNA system, with ICE alone potentially adding as many as roughly 920,000 profiles in 2025. The vast majority of people in ICE custody have no criminal conviction, and residing in the US undocumented is typically a civil, not criminal, offense. Yet once the DNA profiles of detained people enter the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, law enforcement agencies across the country can compare them against evidence from unsolved crimes—and against crime-scene DNA collected years or even decades from now.
A Disturbing Trend
The expansion of DNA collection has extended to families held in immigration detention, sparked lawsuits over the collection of DNA from protesters and others who allege they should never have been subjected to the program, and drawn congressional scrutiny after lawmakers learned that children were being swabbed at a family detention center in Dilley, Texas. “None of the families at Dilley have been convicted of a crime,” US representatives Joaquin Castro, Greg Stanton, and Nanette Barragán said in a joint statement to WIRED. “They do not belong in a database meant for violent criminals, especially children.”
A Broader Shift
According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data cited by Georgetown, CBP once accounted for the majority of immigration detentions. ICE now accounts for roughly 85 percent, CBP for 15. As of July 11 of this year, ICE was holding 65,765 people, up from 60,311 in early April, while arrests climbed toward 1,500 a day, according to Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University. The largest single group in detention had no criminal history at all.
Key points
- ICE collected nearly 1 million people's DNA last year, including young children.
- The DNA profiles are being funneled into an FBI database built for criminal investigations.
- The expansion of DNA collection has sparked lawsuits and congressional scrutiny.
- Most people being held in immigration custody haven't done anything wrong and shouldn't be in a database meant for violent criminals.
If the government stops collecting DNA from people in immigration custody, it could help prevent the misuse of genetic information and protect civil liberties.
If the government continues to collect DNA from people in immigration custody, it could lead to a massive database of genetic information that could be used to target and discriminate against certain groups.
