DHS Collected DNA from 2,000 U.S. Citizens Without Due Process. It's Now in a Law Enforcement Database.
By expanding federal agents' authority to collect the DNA of immigrant detainees, the government has risked violating Americans’ rights.
For years, the federal government has been amassing DNA profiles of noncitizens. But recently released Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data reveal that officials knowingly collected the DNA of approximately 2,000 American citizens and added it to a national genetic surveillance database used by law enforcement.
This genetic collection was made possible by a March 2020 rule change to the 2005 DNA Fingerprint Act, which removed the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) discretion to exempt detained noncitizens from DNA collection. This drastically expanded the number of DNA samples the DHS collects and uploads to the federal database known as the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
Between 2020 and 2024, the CBP alone—which is only one of the many agencies under DHS—added between 1.3 and 2.8 million people to CODIS, compared to just 30,000 detainees added between 2005 and 2020, according to Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology. Of this total, CBP provided CODIS with the DNA of between 1,947 and 2,131 U.S. citizens.
The collection of DNA under DHS's civil authority raises due process concerns. Because immigration detention is considered a civil matter, immigration authorities do not receive the same level of oversight as criminal cases, such as requiring judicial review of an immigration agent's "probable cause" before detaining someone and collecting their DNA.
Unhindered by the protections afforded to criminal defendants, the DHS has quickly increased the number of DNA profiles in CODIS by taking samples from noncriminals. Between December 2024 and April 2025, 97 percent of the nearly 300,000 DNA profiles collected by the DHS were collected from individuals who were detained under civil, not criminal, authority. Georgetown Law reports that in many cases, civil detainees were coerced into giving a DNA sample or were unaware that a DNA sample had even been taken.
The lack of oversight also carries a serious concern "that DHS will erroneously take DNA from permanent residents and citizens…without the suspicion of wrongdoing," according to Georgetown Law, which could "be used by police to prosecute that person criminally, even in states that have laws explicitly requiring a criminal conviction or a warrant before a person can have their DNA taken."
Georgetown's fears have clearly come true. Recently released CBP data confirms that the DNA of U.S. citizens was submitted to CODIS. The legal justification provided for collecting DNA samples from 525 of these citizens—at least 40 of whom were minors—was the fact that the individual was simply a detainee, despite CBP having a directive that "CBP agents/officers may never document" U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents as "detainees" for DNA profile placement. Approximately 865 American citizens had their DNA collected without receiving formal federal charges, meaning that no one outside the executive branch reviewed CBP's authority to arrest, detain, or take the DNA of these individuals, according to Georgetown Law.
Once collected by the DHS, the DNA samples are sent to the FBI for analysis and uploaded to the CODIS, where law enforcement nationwide can search for the individual's permanent DNA record. The sample is then stored indefinitely at the FBI's Federal DNA Database Unit, creating privacy concerns about how the DNA samples may be used in the future.
The number of American citizens and legal permanent residents whose DNA has been collected and uploaded into CODIS by DHS has likely already grown since President Donald Trump took office. Under the Trump administration, the DHS has used its broad, vague, and unchecked power to accumulate a record number of immigration detentions, including individuals who have been wrongfully detained.
"Those spreadsheets tell a chilling story," Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy at Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology, told WIRED. "They show DNA taken from people as young as 4 and as old as 93—and as our analysis found, they also show CBP flagrantly violating the law by taking DNA from citizens without justification."
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable search and seizure, including the compelled taking of a DNA sample, unless probable cause—checked under judicial review—exists. Predictably, by expanding the authority of the DHS to collect the DNA of civilly detained immigrants, the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens have been violated. These violations will likely continue as the Trump administration ramps up surveillance technology and immigration enforcement manpower to meet the president's mass deportation goals.
