Federal immigration authorities have aggressively expanded the collection of DNA from detained individuals, contributing nearly one million new genetic profiles to the FBI's criminal database in 2025 alone. This policy affects thousands of people held for civil immigration violations, most of whom have no criminal history, and integrates their biological data into systems accessible to law enforcement nationwide.
The Escalation of DNA Harvesting
The landscape of federal DNA collection has undergone a dramatic shift, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) now playing a central role in supplying the national criminal DNA system. Research from Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology reveals that the Department of Homeland Security has emerged as the nation's largest contributor of new genetic profiles. While customs officials previously led this effort at the border, 2025 marked a distinct phase for ICE. FBI records indicate that the 'detainee' index within the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) swelled by roughly 995,000 profiles in 2025. By analyzing records regarding customs submissions against this total growth, researchers estimate that ICE was responsible for nearly 920,000 of those entries, effectively processing more than 2,700 individuals per day.
Individual Consequences and Legal Resistance
The human impact of this policy was starkly illustrated by the case of Hugo Moreno-Mendez, who faced criminal charges for refusing to provide a DNA sample during a routine probation check-in. Despite his protest, he was prosecuted and found guilty of failing to register as a noncitizen and refusing to provide a DNA sample. Moreno-Mendez’s experience is emblematic of a broader trend where civil immigration detainees are pressured—under threat of criminal prosecution—to submit to genetic harvesting. The practice has sparked significant backlash, including congressional scrutiny following reports that even children were being swabbed at family detention centers. Lawmakers have voiced strong opposition, emphasizing that these families have no criminal records and do not belong in a database originally designed for tracking violent offenders.
Regulatory Evolution and Internal Justification
This mass collection program is rooted in a regulatory pivot initiated in 2020. Before this change, the Justice Department allowed for exemptions that spared many immigration detainees from being sampled. However, the 2020 decision eliminated these protections, and subsequent internal directives from ICE mandated that officers collect DNA from almost everyone in custody. Internal training materials highlight the broad scope of this directive, with guidance explicitly instructing officers to swab asylum seekers and refugees who have not yet adjusted their immigration status. One internal ICE presentation even listed 'FUN FACTS' regarding CODIS matches made from these samples, detailing a variety of offenses ranging from property crimes to stalking. The notes within these materials show an attempt to justify the invasive procedures by framing them as essential tools for solving local, everyday crimes.
Conflict Over Purpose and Privacy
A central tension exists between the government's stated justification for the program and its actual application. When the rules were modified, officials argued that collecting DNA from detainees was a standard administrative procedure, similar to fingerprinting, intended to confirm identity. However, critics argue this rationale is flawed because the physical samples are uploaded to CODIS, where they are compared against unsolved crime scene evidence indefinitely, rather than merely verifying who a person is. This perspective is supported by internal government communications; an ICE legal opinion from March 2025 acknowledged that the 'primary purpose' of the authority is to build a national crime-solving database. Privacy experts argue this renders the original identification defense obsolete, noting that the Fourth Amendment was intended to protect individuals from such suspicionless, compelled surrender of sensitive biological information.
⚖ The Balanced View
Supporting view
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that DNA collection is a vital border-security and identification measure, comparing the practice to routine fingerprinting during the booking process.
Concerns & criticism
Privacy advocates and lawmakers argue that the program inappropriately targets individuals without criminal records, including children, and violates the principle of using criminal databases only for legitimate law enforcement investigations.
→What's next
The ongoing expansion of the CODIS detainee index suggests that the proportion of non-criminal genetic profiles will continue to climb against traditional police-collected evidence. Observers expect continued legal challenges as researchers and lawmakers pressure the Department of Homeland Security for greater transparency regarding the storage and usage of these massive biological datasets.