The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database
Credit to Author: Dhruv Mehrotra| Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 10:30:00 +0000
The United States government has collected DNA samples from upwards of 133,000 migrant children and teenagers—including at least one 4-year-old—and uploaded their genetic data into a national criminal database used by local, state, and federal law enforcement, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.
The records, quietly released by the US Customs and Border Protection earlier this year, offer the most detailed look to date at the scale of CBP’s controversial DNA collection program. They reveal for the first time just how deeply the government’s biometric surveillance reaches into the lives of migrant children, some of whom may still be learning to read or tie their shoes—yet whose DNA is now stored in a system originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals.
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The Department of Justice has argued that extensive DNA collection activity at the border provides “an assessment of the danger” a migrant potentially “poses to the public” and will essentially help solve crimes that may be committed in the future. Experts say that the children’s raw genetic material will be stored indefinitely and worry that, without proper guardrails, the DNA dragnet could eventually be used for more extensive profiling.
Spanning from October 2020 through the end of 2024, the records show that CBP swabbed the cheeks of between 829,000 and 2.8 million people, with experts estimating that the true figure, excluding duplicates, is likely well over 1.5 million. That number includes as many as 133,539 children and teenagers. These figures mark a sweeping expansion of biometric surveillance—one that explicitly targets migrant populations, including children.
The DNA samples are registered in the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, a database administered by the FBI, which processes the DNA and stores the resulting genetic profiles. A network of criminal forensic databases, CODIS is used by local, state, and federal enforcement agencies to match DNA collected from crime scenes or convictions to identify suspects.
On May 10, 2024, for instance, records say that CBP agents from the El Paso, Texas, field office collected a DNA sample from the mouth of an individual in its custody whom CBP identified as Cuban and who was detained for allegedly being an “immigrant w/o docs.” Swabbing the individuals’ cheek, the agents obtained a DNA sample containing the individual's entire genetic code and then sent the sample to the FBI for processing.
According to CBP records, the individual was just 4 years old.
Of the tens of thousands of minors whose DNA was collected by Customs and Border Protection over the past four years, as many as 227 were 13 or younger, including the 4-year-old. Department of Homeland Security policy states that individuals under 14 are generally exempt from DNA collection, but field officers have the discretion to collect DNA in some circumstances. The data shows additional entries for kids aged 10, 11, 12, and 13. The numbers spike beginning at age 14; more than 30,000 entries were logged for each age group from 14 to 17.
Under current rules, DNA is generally collected from anyone who is also fingerprinted. According to DHS policy, 14 is the minimum age at which fingerprinting becomes routine.
As many as 122 minors were categorized as American citizens, 53 of whom were not detained for any criminal arrest, CBP records say. (People asking to enter the United States to apply for asylum are put in civil rather than criminal custody.)
Neither DHS nor CBP provided comment ahead of publication.
Multiple legal, privacy, and immigration experts described the findings as deeply troubling. “It’s horribly dystopian,” says Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “It’s impossible for me to think of a reason to collect a 4-year-old’s DNA and upload it to a database that’s explicitly supposed to be about criminal activity.”
As one of the world’s largest law enforcement agencies, CBP is responsible for intercepting and processing individuals who cross the US border without authorization. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement handles long-term detention and deportation, CBP controls the earliest, most vulnerable hours of a migrant’s legal journey in the US, often when they are first taken into custody, questioned, and in many cases fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA.
Both CBP and ICE operate under the Department of Homeland Security and, under current policy, are authorized to collect fingerprints and DNA from anyone in their custody as young as 14 years old. Exceptions for younger children can be made in certain cases involving “potentially criminal situations”; however, the CBP data analyzed by WIRED indicates this was the case in as few as 2.2 percent of the hundreds of kids subjected to DNA swabs.
Of the 227 people listed in the data as children under 14 and having their DNA submitted to the FBI, most of them are simply labeled “detainee.” Only five were listed as arrestees or linked to criminal charges.
CBP’s participation in the CODIS program isn’t new, though it expanded significantly after a 2020 Department of Justice rule amending a previous exemption that effectively allowed DHS to avoid collecting DNA from civil immigration detainees.
Sara Huston, an expert in genomics policy and the principal investigator at the Genetics and Justice Laboratory and a research assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, tells WIRED that CODIS is a powerful tool for law enforcement when solving violent crimes, sexual assaults, and missing persons cases.
Huston explains that typically when DNA is collected from a crime scene—such as in a sexual assault case—it’s processed and uploaded to CODIS and compared with DNA from anyone in the database, which includes people who have been previously arrested for certain crimes or convicted. A match can help investigators connect unsolved cases, identify suspects, and share critical leads across jurisdictions.
But the inclusion of migrants, the vast majority of whom were not listed in CBP data as having been accused of any felonies, raises deeper questions about what kind of data belongs in a criminal database. CODIS was designed to track criminal offenders, not to permanently catalog the genetic information of undocumented children passing through immigration custody.
“It’s not that we can’t solve crimes by collecting these samples—that’s why CODIS exists, and it’s a wonderful tool,” Huston says. “But it’s not a fair system to keep DNA of people who have not committed crimes on the assumption that they likely will.”
Apprehensions of migrants who crossed the border unlawfully between ports of entry have since fallen to historic lows during the current Trump administration; it's unclear whether the pace of DNA collection has also slowed, as the most recent data ends on December 31, 2024.
The data, which CBP published to its website in February, shows that DNA collection accelerated under the Biden administration, with daily submissions to CODIS increasing sharply in 2024 alongside a reported rise in border apprehensions. On a single day in January 2024, for example, the Laredo, Texas, field office submitted as many as 3,930 DNA samples to the FBI—252 were listed as 17 or younger, CBP records show.
The DOJ has defended the mass collection of DNA at the border as necessary for solving crimes. In its official rationale, the agency argues that this sweeping effort is “essential” not only for identifying migrants who may have committed crimes in the past but also for potentially solving crimes they might commit in the future.
For Stevie Glaberson, the director of research and advocacy at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, the implication is clear: The US government is treating every person who crosses the border, regardless of age, legal status, or whether they’re accused of any wrongdoing, as a possible suspect in crimes yet to occur.
If the government’s goal is to determine whether a detainee is connected to past crimes, Glaberson tells WIRED, there would be no need to add that person’s DNA to CODIS—they could simply check for a match against existing profiles. “It’s hard to imagine a situation where a 4-year-old was involved in criminal activity,” Glaberson says.
“Taking DNA from a 4-year old and adding it into CODIS flies in the face of any immigration purpose,” she says, adding, “That’s not immigration enforcement. That’s genetic surveillance.”
Multiple studies show no link between immigration and increased crime.
In 2024, Glaberson coauthored a report called “Raiding the Genome” that was the first to try to quantify DHS’s 2020 expansion of DNA collection. It found that if DHS continues to collect DNA at the rate the agency itself projects, one-third of the DNA profiles in CODIS by 2034 will have been taken by DHS, and seemingly without any real due process—the protections that are supposed to be in place before law enforcement compels a person to hand over their most sensitive information.
CBP collects DNA using buccal swab kits—long cotton-tipped sticks used to scrape the inside of a detainee’s cheek. While the DNA sample itself contains a person’s entire genetic code, Huston says that what’s uploaded to CODIS is better understood as a lower-resolution snapshot—a DNA profile made up of select genetic markers used solely to identify individuals—and is not intended to reveal traits, health conditions, or genetic predispositions. However, both she and Glaberson note that the raw DNA sample itself could be stored indefinitely.
The DOJ did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did it answer questions about how long raw DNA samples are stored. However, a current DOJ official, speaking to WIRED on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution, defended the collection and retention of migrant DNA. Storing raw samples, they say, is necessary for due process—to confirm that a match in CODIS can be traced back to the original raw material. “If you aren’t committing a crime, being in this database isn’t going to affect you,” they say, arguing that a larger pool of DNA increases the chances of finding a match.
Under federal law, CODIS data and the raw genetic samples can only be used for identification in criminal cases. DHS policy states that DNA samples may not be used to discriminate “in the provision of health benefits or other services” and that DNA samples are not used by the FBI to “reveal any physical traits, race, ethnicity, disease susceptibility, or other sensitive information about an individual.”
But privacy advocates worry that those rules aren’t enough, since policies can change and new uses can emerge alongside new technology. For instance, privacy and civil liberties experts have warned that the government could one day use DNA to link immigrants to family members, who could also be targeted by law enforcement. Another concern is that genetic data might be reanalyzed to predict health-related markers or inherited conditions—potentially influencing decisions about admissibility or whether someone is likely to require government support.
As Glaberson warns, “The warehousing of genetic samples containing the entirety of people's genetic code presents a risk in the future.”