Donald Trump and his administration openly and brazenly commit crimes in front of cameras, but it’s asylum-seekers and their families who are your problem, they continue to insist, on Monday issuing “amended regulations that would mandate DNA collection for almost all migrants who cross between official entry points and are held even temporarily,” the AP reports.
This DNA collection—“which will be collected without consent,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement—would include many asylum-seekers, and would be added to “a massive FBI database used by law enforcement hunting for criminals, a Justice Department official said.” It would not include children under 14—it would be interesting to find out the reasoning behind a, say, 15-year-old child not being exempt—and “it’s unclear” whether it would apply to asylum-seekers who arrive at an official U.S. port of entry.
What is clear is that the administration continues to trample on these families, and does that despite, for the trillionth time, studies showing that immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born Americans to commit crimes. The AP reports, “Currently, officials collect DNA on a much more limited basis—when a migrant is prosecuted in federal court for a criminal offense.” We need to care about this overreach, regardless of immigration status.
"Forced DNA collection exposes sensitive, personal information not only about those in immigration detention,” the ACLU’s Naureen Shah said, “but also their family members, including U.S. citizens. Instead of allowing this administration to treat immigrants as threats to be surveilled, Congress should prevent any appropriations from being used for this DNA collection.”
But Congress shouldn’t just stop there either, Shah continued: “It should also cut funding for immigration detention, which has soared to an unprecedented level of more than 50,000 people a day”—and continues to results in in-custody immigrant deaths. Last week, asylum-seeker Roylan Hernández-Díaz, frustrated over his ongoing detention, likely committed suicide at a privately operated prison in Louisiana. Shortly before that, Nebane Abienwi died after being jailed at a privately run jail in California.