President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to collect DNA from millions of migrants arriving at the United States-Mexico border, whistleblowers allege.
A letter to Biden and Harris, signed by more than two dozen House and Senate Republicans, details whistleblower allegations against DHS in particular for allegedly refusing to abide by the DNA Fingerprint Act passed by Congress in 2005.
The law requires federal agencies to collect DNA samples from those arrested, charged, and convicted of crimes as well as foreign nationals detained by the federal government.
While former President Barack Obama’s DHS had failed to comply with the law, former President Donald Trump finalized a rule in 2020 that made clear the law had to be followed. Since then, whistleblowers allege, Biden and Harris’s DHS has continued to violate the law.
“In Fiscal Year 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration collected DNA from only 16% of the 1.9 million individuals encountered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Office of Field Operations (OFO),” the Republicans write:
Further, in Fiscal Year 2022, DNA was collected from only 37% of the 2.7 million individuals encountered by CBP and OFO. Whistleblowers also disclosed that in the first three quarters of Fiscal Year 2023, CBP and OFO collected DNA from only 36% of the 2.3 million individuals encountered. More recently, according to protected whistleblower disclosures, CBP officials visited United States Border Patrol (USBP) processing facilities in Tucson, Casa Grande, Yuma, and San Diego, and at no facility that these officials visited was DNA being collected. This blatant disregard for the law has been exacerbated by your administration’s failed border policies, which have precipitated an unprecedented explosion in nationwide encounters of illegal immigrants at our borders — over 10 million in just three and-a-half years and this staggering sum doesn’t even account for the estimated 2 million that crossed and evaded apprehension. [Emphasis added]
The Republicans note that Biden and Harris’s failure to collect DNA from migrants arriving at the border has had deadly consequences.
“Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, the Salvadoran gang member that allegedly raped and killed Rachel Morin, and who also was linked to the murder of a young woman in El Salvador, crossed the border four separate times,” the Republicans write:
During three of these crossings — twice in January 2023 and once in February 2023 — border patrol agents apprehended and deported him. According to the panelists and other whistleblower disclosures, DHS did not collect DNA from Martinez-Hernandez, despite having “three bites at the apple.” On his fourth illegal crossing, Martinez-Hernandez was able to evade border patrol agents completely. [Emphasis added]
Six months prior to Rachel Morin’s tragic murder, Martinez-Hernandez allegedly committed a home invasion, assaulting a 9-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles. DNA was collected at the crime scene and submitted to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Had DNA been collected during any of Martinez-Hernandez’s three encounters with DHS, “there would’ve been an instant possibility that any future criminal activity would have stopped immediately. And there was a definite potential for the individual to be apprehended.” [Emphasis added]
The whistleblowers, the Republicans write, are now allegedly being retaliated against by the Biden-Harris administration.
“Retaliation against Mr. Jones, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Wynn continues to this day by your administration, despite OSC corroborating their claims and finding that prohibited personnel practices did occur,” the Republicans write, noting that one of the whistleblowers has lost his retirement coverage after 30 years of federal service.
One such DHS official in the Biden-Harris administration, the whistleblowers allege, said they wanted to “bankrupt [them], make [them] quit, die, kill [themselves], or, preferably, all of the above.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
