Unauthorized Genetic Surveillance: Customs and Border Protection’s Unlawful DNA Collection from U.S. Citizens and Minors

For years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have engaged in covert DNA harvesting from American citizens—including minors—and funneled these samples into the FBI’s criminal database, government data reveals. This expansion of genetic surveillance was never authorized by Congress for citizens, children, or civil detainees.

Data Analysis: Scope and Violations

Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology, analyzing newly released government records, found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees CBP, collected DNA from nearly 2,000 U.S. citizens between 2020 and 2024. Of these, an estimated 95 were minors, including individuals as young as 14. Notably, the samples included travelers never charged with a crime, with dozens of entries leaving the “charges” field blank. In other cases, CBP agents invoked civil penalties to justify swabs, despite federal law reserving such procedures for criminal arrests alone.

Expert Concerns: Oversight Failures and Legal Violations

These findings suggest a program operating outside statutory and oversight bounds, with CBP exercising broad discretion to collect genetic material from Americans and route it to CODIS—the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, originally designed for convicted offenders. Critics warn that individuals added to CODIS face lifelong heightened law enforcement scrutiny.

“These datasets reveal a disturbing pattern: DNA taken from individuals as young as 4 and as old as 93, with CBP flagrantly violating legal requirements for DNA collection from U.S. citizens,” states Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy at Georgetown’s Center on Privacy & Technology. “The public has a right to know how this violates their privacy and constitutional protections.”

CODIS: From Forensic Tool to Surveillance Archive

Since its inception over two decades ago, CODIS was billed as a tool for investigating violent crimes. However, under policy shifts and the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, the system has evolved into a catchall repository for genetic material collected far beyond the criminal justice system. By late 2024, DHS contributed approximately 2.6 million profiles to CODIS—far exceeding prior projections. By April 2025, this figure surged to over 2.6 million, with 97% of samples collected under civil authority (not criminal law).

Policy Drivers and Data Scale

The expansion was driven by key policy changes:

• In April 2020, the Justice Department revoked a waiver allowing DHS to skip DNA collection from immigration detainees, effectively enabling mass sampling.

• In January 2025, Trump’s renewed border enforcement executive order explicitly authorized genetic testing to verify family ties and identity, accelerating collection efforts.

By mid-2025, DHS’s monthly submissions to CODIS had reached 92,000—a tenfold increase from historical averages—creating a backlog of 650,000 unprocessed kits, according to former FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Oversight Gaps and Legal Challenges

Oversight bodies and lawmakers have condemned the program:

• The DHS Inspector General (2021) found systemic failures in DNA collection oversight, warning noncompliance could undermine public safety.

• Senator Ron Wyden (2025) questioned why children’s DNA was being collected, stating CODIS lacked safeguards to reject improperly obtained samples, risking indefinite suspicion for minor offenses.

Rights advocates, including Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, argue the program has morphed into “a sweeping genetic surveillance regime,” with no transparency or limits on retention. Georgetown Law and allies have sued DHS to compel release of program records, highlighting public ignorance of data usage and storage.

Conclusion: A System Repurposed for Surveillance

The revelations underscore a quiet repurposing of CODIS from a forensic tool to a surveillance archive, capturing immigrants, travelers, and U.S. citizens with minimal accountability.

“DHS’s DNA collection activities remain largely opaque, and we continue fighting to expose this program’s true scope,” Glaberson adds. “The public deserves clarity on how its genetic information is weaponized against them.”

DHS did not respond to requests for comment.