ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Who Are Targeted for Deportation

The Trump administration is seeking to issue a contract worth up to $25 million to DNA-test families being targeted for deportation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The effort coincides with a dramatic increase in immigration arrests in the nation’s interior, with ICE apprehending people at court hearings as well as high school students and families with children who are US citizens — groups ICE has not historically pursued. On Wednesday, CNN reported that ICE has taken roughly 500 children from their homes and into government custody through so-called welfare checks since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

In mid-May, the agency issued a contract to SNA International LLC, which was founded in the wake of 9/11 to identify remains in mass fatality events. On May 23, Bode Cellmark Forensics Inc. filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office challenging the award, which wasn’t open to other bidders. ICE issued a stop-work order on May 27 in response to the protest, according to an emailed statement from the agency.

Federal agents take a person into custody after an immigration court hearing in Phoenix, on May 21.

Photographer: Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo

Advocates say giving ICE’s Enforcement and Removals office, which oversees deportations, the ability to DNA-test families would pave the way for the administration to separate children from the adults who care for them. Last week, Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem outlining what he called “grave concerns” over recent incidents in which children were separated from their primary caregivers.

“By leaning heavily on who is actually blood related, there is a good chance that we will see caregivers” such as “godfathers and godmothers being taken away from children,” said Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group previously sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose data related to its rapid DNA testing at the border. “Families are much more complicated than this regime is determining they are.”

Guariglia and other advocates are also concerned that the data collected from the tests could be used for other purposes, such as criminal investigations. Last week, Wired reported that US Customs and Border Protection tested DNA from hundreds of thousands of people, including as many as 133,539 children and teenagers, between October 2020 and the end of 2024 — and that the data was being stored indefinitely in a system originally built for violent criminals.

“What they really want to do is build a massive database of genetic material,” said Guariglia.

After confirming the stop-work order, a representative for ICE didn’t respond to questions seeking additional information about the DNA tests, including whether they could be used to separate children from caregivers and if the results could be challenged. A representative for SNA International declined to comment and referred questions to ICE.

On its website, SNA says it is “leading the implementation of Rapid DNA to prevent human trafficking, promote legal immigration, reunite families following disasters, and identify individuals attempting to harm our homeland.” Bode didn’t respond to a request for comment.

ICE obligated $6.2 million to the SNA contract, but it could go as high as $25 million, according to award details. Bode’s challenge of the contract to SNA is not publicly available. A decision by the GAO is due by Sept. 2, according to its website.

It’s not the first time ICE has contracted with a private company to provide rapid DNA tests for immigrant families. Under the first Trump administration, the agency launched a pilot program in May 2019 to verify parent-child relationships under its Homeland Security Investigations arm, expanding it the next month with a $5.2 million contract to Bode, a former subsidiary of Labcorp Holdings Inc. At the time, the agency said rapid DNA tests could be used to identify “fraudulent parent-child relationships” when families were taken into custody by immigration officials, amid reports that some children had been trafficked by smugglers.

In 2021, ICE handed the program over to Customs and Border Protection, which implemented rapid DNA testing at 18 locations across the country. A DHS privacy assessmentthat same year said agents and officers were required to provide a consent form for adults to agree to the testing and how it may be used, with versions available in Spanish, Portuguese and other languages as needed. The Biden administration ended DNA testing for the purpose of family verification in 2023.

A report from the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology said many people it interviewed who were swabbed by DHS officials “were not aware their DNA had been collected or thought the swab was for the purpose of a Covid-19 test.” Others consented to the swab “under threat of criminal prosecution if they did not comply,” according to the report. The center sued DHS this week for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request over the way the agency collects and maintains DNA samples from non-citizens.

“The mass collection of this data leaves it open for abuse,” Emerald Tse, an author on the report and an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology, said of ICE’s efforts to bring back DNA testing for family verification. “They really shouldn’t be keeping those DNA samples in perpetuity.”

To contact the authors of this story:
Rachel Adams-Heard in Houston at radamsheard@bloomberg.net

Fola Akinnibi in New York at fakinnibi1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net

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