DNA tests protect migrants, U.S. residents

Technology will weed out traffickers, criminals and help solve cases

There’s an easy, surprisingly cost-effective way to make immigration enforcement safer and more humane while reducing fraud and preventing criminals from hiding among asylum seekers: DNA testing.

A pilot program initiated in May quickly proved invaluable in our efforts to combat the human traffickers who “rent” children to (undocumented) immigrants who use them to avoid law enforcement scrutiny. About 30% of the supposed “family units” tested during the pilot program were found to have no genetic relation. These tests, which take only 90 minutes to administer and cost just a few dollars each, make it much more difficult for (undocumented) immigrants to use exploited children as an easy route into the United States, reducing the financial incentive for coyotes to “recycle” the same children and preventing child sex traffickers from disguising themselves as family units. Based on that success, the government is rolling out a full-scale program to collect and store DNA from nearly everyone apprehended while crossing the U.S. border illegally, including those who request asylum at ports of entry. The DOJ expects to collect an additional 748,000 DNA samples annually over the next three years, at a total cost of just $13 million — which translates to less than $6 per sample, including overhead and administrative expenses.

The expanded collection program will allow law enforcement to quickly and easily identify criminals — including repeat immigration offenders who, in many cases, have been apprehended and deported many times before. Penalties are more severe for repeat offenders, so the incentive for illegal border-crossers to conceal their identity is powerful, but they can’t change their DNA. Some criminals... will inevitably slip through. That’s where the program’s true utility lies. When DNA is collected from crime scenes in the United States, law enforcement will be able to quickly determine whether it belongs to someone who had no right to be in the United States in the first place.

If this common-sense policy had been put in place a decade ago, when the law authorizing it first took effect, Mesa Police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza and countless other innocent victims might still be with us. Mendoza was killed in 2014 when a drunk, drugged-up (undocumented) immigrant with multiple criminal convictions who was driving the wrong way down the highway slammed head-on into Mendoza’s cruiser as he returned home from a night shift.

Unfortunately, the Associated Press wildly mischaracterizes the situation on the border, ignores the benefits the program will provide, and quotes avowed open-borders activists as authorities in its coverage of the DNA-testing program.

Echoing activist rhetoric, the AP deceptively describes illegal border-crossers as “asylum-seekers and other migrants,” ignoring the fact that the vast majority of asylum claims are found to be meritless when examined by immigration courts.

The AP also cavalierly glosses over the fact that illegal immigration is a crime. American citizens who are arrested for crimes routinely have their DNA collected, and the only reason the practice hasn’t been applied more broadly to (undocumented) immigrants before now is that the Obama-era DHS carved out exemptions for certain categories of detained aliens. DNA collection is a powerful tool in solving crimes and elicits none of the outrage the AP reporters apparently feel about using it to help secure the border. The real reason the “experts” cited by the AP oppose DNA collection at the border is that it works. It will help to end the humanitarian and national security crisis on our border and give Americans better control over who enters our country — an unacceptable outcome for advocates of open borders.

New Mexicans have a vested interest in genuine border security. For a negligible cost, the new DNA collection program will make our communities safer, discourage exploitation of vulnerable children, and help law enforcement solve crimes. It’s hard to imagine taxpayers getting a bigger bang for their buck.