Trump administration plans on collecting DNA from detained migrants

The U.S. government wants to start collecting DNA from detained immigrants to include in a national criminal database, senior Department of Homeland Security officials told reporters on Wednesday.

The database is maintained by the FBI and used by law enforcement authorities as they attempt to identify suspects. DNA is usually collected from people who have been arrested, charged, or convicted of major crimes.

The Justice Department is working on a federal regulation that gives immigration officers authorization to collect DNA from migrants at detention facilities containing more than 40,000 people, The New York Times reports. Under these new rules, the government would also be able to collect DNA from kids and asylum seekers who cross the border at legal ports of entry.

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"That kind of mass collection alters the purpose of DNA collection from one of criminal investigation basically to population surveillance, which is basically contrary to our basic notions of a free, trusting, autonomous society," Vera Eidelman, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told the Times. Collecting genetic material would also have ramifications for family members of the immigrants who are U.S. citizens or have legal residence, she added.