U.S. to collect DNA samples from arrested immigrants

Immigrant and civil rights groups have condemned a new U.S. Justice Department policy requiring federal agencies to collect DNA samples from all those they detain or arrest.

The regulation - which took effect Friday - expands a national database of individual genetic markers that previously included only those convicted of federal and some state crimes.

Law enforcement officials say compiling more DNA records will help them match suspects with forensic evidence found at crime scenes.

But for the thousands of illegal immigrants detained on civil violations each year, the expansion threatens to lump them in with more violent criminals, said Kathleen Walker, an El Paso-based immigration attorney and the immediate past president of the national American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"To sit there and paint that population with the same brush as violent criminals is extremely disturbing," she said. "Throwing DNA testing into a civil field (like immigration) is wrong and unconstitutional."

Federal legislators authorized the new policy in 2005, citing the growing effectiveness of DNA evidence in investigating crime.

The DNA plan was included as an amendment to that year's reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

Officials compare the collection of such genetic samples to fingerprint records, which have been taken from all detainees and stored in state and federal databases for years.

All 50 states currently allow DNA to be taken from convicted state offenders, and 13 take samples from those suspected of violent offenses before their arrest. Much of the information has been added to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System since its creation in 1994.

The CODIS database currently houses records on 6 million individuals. The new collection parameters would add an additional 1.2 million each year, according to Justice Department estimates.

"It's not something where every agency will be ready to go immediately," department spokesman Evan Peterson said. But once it happens, "federal law enforcement will have the most up-to-date technology to use when investigating crime."

The sheer logistics of collecting and cataloguing samples could prove overwhelming - especially in the Rio Grande Valley, where thousands of immigrants are detained each year on suspicion of illegally crossing the border.

In the last fiscal year alone, federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against more than 25,000 immigrants in the judicial district stretching from Houston to the Rio Grande Valley, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal prosecutions and enforcement actions.

That number does not include individuals apprehended and deported back to their home countries without being charged with a crime - a group that would also be required to submit their DNA under the new policy.

Most samples would be taken by cheek swab - a relatively simple form of DNA collection - and the FBI has already received money to deal with an expected backlog in entering the samples into its database.

But in Texas, where crime lab backlogs have led to a number of high-profile mistakes in recent years, the risks of overburdening technicians with millions of new entries could cause further complications, the American Civil Liberties Union said.

"We think we're contributing to solving crimes," said Tania Simoncello, a science adviser to the group. "But the backlog could contribute to more miscarriages of justice."

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño insists, however, that expanding the national DNA database will be worth the necessary expenses.

He has noted a startling increase in recent months in crimes committed by criminal illegal immigrants - a group he distinguishes from those who break immigration laws merely to look for work in the United States.

And while authorities in their home countries may have collected fingerprints or genetic markers from these individuals in the past, such information is often unavailable to local law enforcement.

Now, even if a suspect has been previously picked up on immigration violations and immediately let go, his genetic information should be available to investigators.

"It's been proven over and over again that a small number of people are responsible for the vast majority of crimes," Treviño said. "I think we would hit the bonanza - the jackpot - if we started collecting more information on these people."

More troubling, immigration attorney Walker said, is the prospect that those arrested and later cleared of criminal wrongdoing could have problems removing their DNA from the database.

Justice Department officials said such individuals can have their records expunged under court order, but so far no clear procedure exists to accomplish this.

"Unfortunately, the population that is most affected isn't made of the Rockefellers of the world," Walker said. "They don't have the resources to launch an effective legal challenge."