The Department of Homeland Security has refused to follow a law mandating it take DNA samples from illegal immigrants taken into custody, which would identify violent criminals and child traffickers, employees told the U.S. Senate this week.
Speaking to senators on Tuesday, three former WMD officials presented evidence that DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had blocked their efforts to comply with a 2005 law, then retaliated against them when they sounded the alarm about the lawbreaking.
“Given the enormous potential of DNA collection to facility solving crimes, we took our job seriously,” Fred Wynn said.
Law enforcement experts from CBP’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) unit were tasked with implementing a mandatory program to DNA-test illegals. But higher-ups at DHS were so opposed to the law that they continuously thwarted it, eventually disbanding the entire WMD division, the whistleblowers say. Disbanding the division may have opened the United States to a WMD attack, in addition to criminals crossing the border.
The disbanding also allowed hundreds of thousands of children to stay with people who claimed to be relatives, but who may have been child labor or sex traffickers. DNA testing is the only reliable way to ensure that children aren’t coming across the border with traffickers, or being taken to live with them by U.S. officials as “sponsors.”
Mark Jones, previously the acting director of CBP’s WMD unit, said that “the DNA tool is invaluable especially when establishing family units.” More than half a million “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the border illegally and been allowed to remain in the country, and are “reunited” with people purporting to be their relatives, who have sometimes been traffickers.
Jones said the WMD team had its responsibilities stripped, and were told to come to work and simply sit and do nothing. In one case, one team member was told to report to a new desk that had no internet, phone, or power.
“Certain senior officials were hell-bent on slow-rolling any process or pilot program that enabled DNA collection,” he said.
In 2018, Jones heard the special assistant to the Customs and Border Protection chief say that “the Commissioner does not want to do this,” while another official said, “if we have to, we will get the press to capture us forcibly taking DNA from an 89-year old woman to garner outrage,” he said.
That year, DHS “shut down the DNA collection pilot program and disbanded the WMD division,” and Jones was demoted three levels, he said.
Mike Taylor, the third WMD whistleblower, said the men have repeatedly reached out to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but have received no corrective action. Meanwhile, those who retaliated against the men have been promoted.
Congress passed a law requiring the DNA testing of criminals and illegal immigrants in 2005, with near-unanimous bipartisan support. In 2010, the year the requirement kicked in, Barack Obama’s DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a postponement, writing that “we intend to phase-in implementation over the next year.” Holder acquiesced, with an admonishment that DHS should work quickly.
Ten years later, DHS had simply not done it, and cited the memo from Holder as evidence that it has been exempted from following the law.
In August 2019, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a federal agency that investigates whistleblower disclosures and retaliation, found that DHS’s “noncompliance with the law has allowed subjects subsequently accused of violent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault, to elude detection even when detained multiple times by CBP.”
The report points to an illegal immigrant who committed multiple sexual assaults in Arizona in 1997. Though the individual had the DNA of the perpetrator, they could not find a match, since the suspect was not in the system. The crime was only solved in 2019 because the suspect went on to go to prison for another crime, at which point he had his DNA taken.
In 2021, OSC found that DHS retaliated against the whistleblowers due to “displeasure with the Complainants’ perceived and actual involvement in bringing to light the agency’s intentional, decade-long failure to implement a law.”
The office lambasted DHS for lawbreaking and retaliation in the strongest possible terms, and said DHS had given shifting excuses that were demonstrably untrue.
Nonetheless, the retaliation continued. In 2022, DHS took Jones’ and Taylor’s badges, guns, and law enforcement credentials. Taylor lost his law enforcement retirement pension despite his having nearly reached the required 20 years of service.
In 2023, DHS sought to make the whistleblowers’ claims out to be a conspiracy theory with another misleading statement, telling the New York Post that “The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) terminated its investigation into these claims without issuing a Prohibited Personnel Practice Report or seeking corrective action.”
Recently, CBP has engaged in limited DNA testing of illegals—37% in fiscal year 2023. Even with that subset, it matched with the DNA of 1,037 wanted, violent criminals. Illegal immigrant DNA was responsible for 42% of all crimes solved using the FBI’s DNA database.
But that meant that nearly two million illegals in DHS custody did not get DNA swabbed that year. Jones noted that “we likely missed over 1,600 violent criminals in 2023 alone” based on the match rate of the smaller sample.
So far in fiscal year 2024, DNA testing of illegal immigrants has matched the DNA of people wanted in 10 homicides and 145 sex offenses.
The limited DNA testing belatedly implemented by DHS has been carried out in a way that ensures it won’t stop known violent criminals from being allowed to stay in the country. Although the technology exists to take and process a cheek swab on site in 90 minutes, DHS mails the samples to FBI headquarters and gets the results back months later. By that time, the illegal immigrants have already been released.
Failing to use rapid, on-site technology means the DNA samples will only be useful in identifying the illegal aliens if they commit crimes in the future.
The more illegal immigrants are tracked with their DNA, the more crimes they are tied to—an uncomfortable fact for Democrats who claim that illegal immigrants do not commit crimes.
Last month, a man wielding a machete tied up and sexually assaulted two 13-year-old girls in New York City. DNA from the victims tied the crime to Christian Inga, an illegal immigrant who was swabbed when he crossed the border in 2021.
Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, was raped and murdered last year. Charged in her death was Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was also suspected of a homicide there. Maryland police had a DNA sample of the perpetrator, but nothing to compare it to. Although Hernandez had been captured at the border three times, his DNA was never taken.
Maryland police ultimately identified Hernandez by comparing his DNA to that of his relatives.
Tuesday’s congressional panel was conducted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI). The senators held the hearing as an unofficial “roundtable,” as Democrats, who control the Senate, refused to participate.
Grassley said the Biden administration has refused to respond to his oversight inquiries on the topic. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president and has positioned herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, was tasked by Biden with managing issues related to the border.
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[[{“value”:”
The Department of Homeland Security has refused to follow a law mandating it take DNA samples from illegal immigrants taken into custody, which would identify violent criminals and child traffickers, employees told the U.S. Senate this week.
Speaking to senators on Tuesday, three former WMD officials presented evidence that DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had blocked their efforts to comply with a 2005 law, then retaliated against them when they sounded the alarm about the lawbreaking.
“Given the enormous potential of DNA collection to facility solving crimes, we took our job seriously,” Fred Wynn said.
Law enforcement experts from CBP’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) unit were tasked with implementing a mandatory program to DNA-test illegals. But higher-ups at DHS were so opposed to the law that they continuously thwarted it, eventually disbanding the entire WMD division, the whistleblowers say. Disbanding the division may have opened the United States to a WMD attack, in addition to criminals crossing the border.
The disbanding also allowed hundreds of thousands of children to stay with people who claimed to be relatives, but who may have been child labor or sex traffickers. DNA testing is the only reliable way to ensure that children aren’t coming across the border with traffickers, or being taken to live with them by U.S. officials as “sponsors.”
Mark Jones, previously the acting director of CBP’s WMD unit, said that “the DNA tool is invaluable especially when establishing family units.” More than half a million “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the border illegally and been allowed to remain in the country, and are “reunited” with people purporting to be their relatives, who have sometimes been traffickers.
Jones said the WMD team had its responsibilities stripped, and were told to come to work and simply sit and do nothing. In one case, one team member was told to report to a new desk that had no internet, phone, or power.
“Certain senior officials were hell-bent on slow-rolling any process or pilot program that enabled DNA collection,” he said.
In 2018, Jones heard the special assistant to the Customs and Border Protection chief say that “the Commissioner does not want to do this,” while another official said, “if we have to, we will get the press to capture us forcibly taking DNA from an 89-year old woman to garner outrage,” he said.
That year, DHS “shut down the DNA collection pilot program and disbanded the WMD division,” and Jones was demoted three levels, he said.
Mike Taylor, the third WMD whistleblower, said the men have repeatedly reached out to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but have received no corrective action. Meanwhile, those who retaliated against the men have been promoted.
Congress passed a law requiring the DNA testing of criminals and illegal immigrants in 2005, with near-unanimous bipartisan support. In 2010, the year the requirement kicked in, Barack Obama’s DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a postponement, writing that “we intend to phase-in implementation over the next year.” Holder acquiesced, with an admonishment that DHS should work quickly.
Ten years later, DHS had simply not done it, and cited the memo from Holder as evidence that it has been exempted from following the law.
In August 2019, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a federal agency that investigates whistleblower disclosures and retaliation, found that DHS’s “noncompliance with the law has allowed subjects subsequently accused of violent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault, to elude detection even when detained multiple times by CBP.”
The report points to an illegal immigrant who committed multiple sexual assaults in Arizona in 1997. Though the individual had the DNA of the perpetrator, they could not find a match, since the suspect was not in the system. The crime was only solved in 2019 because the suspect went on to go to prison for another crime, at which point he had his DNA taken.
In 2021, OSC found that DHS retaliated against the whistleblowers due to “displeasure with the Complainants’ perceived and actual involvement in bringing to light the agency’s intentional, decade-long failure to implement a law.”
The office lambasted DHS for lawbreaking and retaliation in the strongest possible terms, and said DHS had given shifting excuses that were demonstrably untrue.
Nonetheless, the retaliation continued. In 2022, DHS took Jones’ and Taylor’s badges, guns, and law enforcement credentials. Taylor lost his law enforcement retirement pension despite his having nearly reached the required 20 years of service.
In 2023, DHS sought to make the whistleblowers’ claims out to be a conspiracy theory with another misleading statement, telling the New York Post that “The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) terminated its investigation into these claims without issuing a Prohibited Personnel Practice Report or seeking corrective action.”
Recently, CBP has engaged in limited DNA testing of illegals—37% in fiscal year 2023. Even with that subset, it matched with the DNA of 1,037 wanted, violent criminals. Illegal immigrant DNA was responsible for 42% of all crimes solved using the FBI’s DNA database.
But that meant that nearly two million illegals in DHS custody did not get DNA swabbed that year. Jones noted that “we likely missed over 1,600 violent criminals in 2023 alone” based on the match rate of the smaller sample.
So far in fiscal year 2024, DNA testing of illegal immigrants has matched the DNA of people wanted in 10 homicides and 145 sex offenses.
The limited DNA testing belatedly implemented by DHS has been carried out in a way that ensures it won’t stop known violent criminals from being allowed to stay in the country. Although the technology exists to take and process a cheek swab on site in 90 minutes, DHS mails the samples to FBI headquarters and gets the results back months later. By that time, the illegal immigrants have already been released.
Failing to use rapid, on-site technology means the DNA samples will only be useful in identifying the illegal aliens if they commit crimes in the future.
The more illegal immigrants are tracked with their DNA, the more crimes they are tied to—an uncomfortable fact for Democrats who claim that illegal immigrants do not commit crimes.
Last month, a man wielding a machete tied up and sexually assaulted two 13-year-old girls in New York City. DNA from the victims tied the crime to Christian Inga, an illegal immigrant who was swabbed when he crossed the border in 2021.
Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, was raped and murdered last year. Charged in her death was Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was also suspected of a homicide there. Maryland police had a DNA sample of the perpetrator, but nothing to compare it to. Although Hernandez had been captured at the border three times, his DNA was never taken.
Maryland police ultimately identified Hernandez by comparing his DNA to that of his relatives.
Tuesday’s congressional panel was conducted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI). The senators held the hearing as an unofficial “roundtable,” as Democrats, who control the Senate, refused to participate.
Grassley said the Biden administration has refused to respond to his oversight inquiries on the topic. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president and has positioned herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, was tasked by Biden with managing issues related to the border.
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