Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Collection Program to Expand

The US Department of Justice issued a final rule Friday that enables the collection of DNA from individuals in federal immigration custody, USA Today reports.

The Trump Administration announced in October that it planned to obtain DNA samples from individuals in federal immigration custody and add those samples to the national crime database, CODIS. In January, the Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies rolled out pilot versions of the program at sites in Michigan and Texas.

According to USA Today, the program will be expanded in April and could lead to the collection of samples from hundreds of thousands of people each year. It adds that Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen says the program would "help enforce federal law with the use of science."

However, critics of the program argue it "means treating migrants like criminals," as Sara Katsanis from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine wrote in an opinion piece in The Hill in November.