U.S. immigration authorities are collecting and uploading DNA information for immigrants, including children, including children, according to government documents released earlier this month.

The database includes the DNA of people arrested or convicted, people used by law enforcement when looking for DNA competitions collected at the crime scene. However, most of the DNA collected by the publishing agency Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), are not listed as a person charged with any felony crimes. Anyway, CBP is now creating detailed DNA profiles for immigrants that detailed law enforcement officers can search permanently, which amounts to a “massive expansion of genetic monitoring,” one expert said.

DNA information is stored in a FBI-managed database called the Joint DNA Index System (CODIS), which is used nationwide by local, state and federal law enforcement to use its DNA data to identify suspects.

Wired first reported on the practice and existence of these documents and estimated that more than 133,000 immigrant adolescents and children's DNA has been collected and uploaded to Codis. One of them is only four years old.

Hilton Beckham, assistant assistant commissioner for public affairs at CBP, told WIRID in a statement. “For this purpose, the CBP collects DNA samples to submit the FBI’s consolidated DNA index system…from personnel in the CBP guardians who have been arrested on federal criminal charges and detained by foreigners detained in CBP who are subject to fingerprint approval without other restrictions on the collection requirements.”

Experts at Georgetown University and the Center for Privacy and Technology published a report last week that found that the CBP was collecting DNA from almost all detained immigrants, no matter how long they were detained. The agency has added 1.5 million DNA profiles since 2020, an increase of 5,000% in just three years, the report said. Emerald TSE, one of the authors of the report, said it was a "massive expansion of genetic surveillance and an unreasonable invasion of privacy."

"The program strengthens harmful narratives about immigration and strengthens existing policing practices targeting immigrant communities and people of color, making us all unsafe," TSE said in a statement.

The CBP release document was released, detailing everyone whose DNA was wiped, its age and origin, where these people were transferred and what was charged, dating back to 2020. The latest published document was published from the first quarter of 2025. In 2025, thousands of people were collected by CBP between 2020 and 2020 by CBP to between 2020 and 2020 children. According to Wired, under 13 and over 30,000 are between 14 and 17 years old.

The CBP first launched a pilot program to begin collecting DNA data from detainees under the Department of Justice rules that have allowed the agency to comply with new requirements for collecting genetic samples and uploading them to Codis for three years. At the time, the CBP wrote that it was collecting DNA data from non-U.S. citizens detained between the ages of 14 and 79. The Department of Homeland Security and CBP policies generally state that children under the age of 14 are not obliged to collect their DNA information, despite some discretion to the field officials.

But, according to the Center for Privacy and Technology and Georgetown’s report, the speed of such genetic data is impossible in the context of criminal law.

“Until 2020, state, local police, and other criminal law enforcement agencies added almost all DNA profiles in the Codis 'criminal' database,” the report reads. “In the context of crime, there are some limitations in when, how, how, and who can take DNA, making the process of accumulating samples cumbersome and resource-intensive.”

It may be expanded in part because in the context of immigration, DNA collection has less limitations.

"In the context of immigration, the only restriction on DNA collection is that a person must be 'detained'. However, the meaning of the term "detained" in an immigration environment is well known, well known, vague, vague and growing."

According to the CBP website, the agency sends DNA data directly to the FBI and does not store or maintain the DNA data itself. According to reports from the Center for Privacy and Technology and Georgetown, the genetic information is stored indefinitely by the FBI.

“Knowing that the government has a drop of blood (or saliva) containing your entire genetic code, how will this change your behavior. The report reads, citing the CBP’s documentation. “Can you always look for the medical or reproductive care you need?” Participate in protests and voice objections? Party with the people of your choice? ”