Immigration reveals hitches in verifying DNA tests

Daniel called his wife in Guatemala, desperate, saying that he overheard a cohort of detainees being notified that their DNA tests did not match the children they were claiming as theirs. He was horrified and despondent, stating that he will kill himself if he is not reunified with their son, ostensibly delivering his goodbyes. And so we discover that the dystopian tale actually gets worse.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services seems to be the only immigration related agency that has an official policy on DNA testing to establish paternity. They rely on services provided by accredited labs from the American Association of Blood Banks. Here are the hitches. Nearly 100 percent of labs reporting use short tandem repeats technology to resolve paternity cases. While considered the best technology, there is a small chance of false negatives from STR mutations, and 20 percent of labs reporting use a relatively high threshold for establishing paternity, consistent with the idea that there would be a nontrivial number of false negatives.

But much more problematic than the technical here is the fact that genetic counseling for these families in the event of a negative is not provided, and implications can be profound for families of fathers excluded.

In addition to the intentional government-sponsored abduction of a child, misattributed parentage and hidden social adoptions, which can be very disruptive to the stability of a family, are among the unintended consequences. Furthermore, our immigration system seems to deny a broader concept of family (stepfather, adoptive father). Finally, some AABB accredited labs report using a different combined paternity index for different classes of clients (public versus private contracts). So the threshold for paternity depends on the payer, consistent with the tireless assault on poverty.

As a physician, I have worked with immigration attorneys to help illustrate to immigration courts the psychological impact of parental detention on children, to interrogate the quality of care available to detainees with mental illness (how about six months of solitary for nonviolent, disorganized behavior), and to petition for the medically indicated removal of an ankle monitor.

Peter Schey, lead class counsel on the Flores settlement, has asked me to corral medical professional organizations for support of his reunification efforts and coordinate MDs for compliance visits. As a community organizer and activist, I have worked directly with separated families to connect them to legal resources and to orchestrate public campaigns. Through these roles, I have been afforded a lens into this entirely avoidable crisis of separated families not available to most.

Daniel stated earlier this week, and his son’s social worker confirmed, that the pair was to undergo DNA testing. Daniel has a pro bono attorney who instructed him to do nothing without her involvement. The boy’s new social worker notified mom that the test would be done and if negative, they ‘would fight.’ In a system in which there are over thousands of now functionally parentless children and turnover of the case management team within a period of weeks, how can this family be assured of such advocacy? Daniel has his son’s birth certificate and photos establishing their relationship. Even USCIS states on their web site (again, DHS has nothing) that ‘due to the expense, complexity, and logistical delays inherent in parentage testing, genetic testing generally should be used only in the absence of sufficient other evidence (documentation, photos, etc.) establishing the relationship.’ A second family, with whom I am working, also with sufficient evidence for paternity, has been tasked with providing samples for DNA testing. Science, like any human institution, is not infallible and can be driven by an agenda. Stand up now, before you allow it to be driven by this one.

Murphey, MD, PhD is a co-founder and chair of Pantsuit Republic. Twitter: @dunkindona.