3.3 Million US Citizens’ Data Collected for ‘Massive Genetic Database for Policing’

New research by the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has collected the DNA of more than 3.3 million people, with the program’s “primary purpose” not revolving around immigration enforcement but to “build a national DNA database for solving crimes.”

The data collection encompassing both the Biden and Trump administrations is claimed to be a continuation of federal government efforts to build a massive genetic database for policing the general population, with Georgetown researchers citing a March 2025 email scribed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorney purportedly stating such intent.

Researchers said that ICE is now the primary driver of DNA collection growth, correlating its efforts to the contribution of the DNA of more than 900,000 people to The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) in 2025 alone. CODIS provides scientific information and technology to federal, state and local forensic units for the purpose of electronically exchanging and comparing DNA profiles nationwide to search for and locate violent individuals and offenders.

In 2024, the Privacy Center published “Raiding the Genome: How the United States Government Is Abusing Its Immigration Powers to Amass DNA for Future Policing.” Findings culminated an approximate two-year investigation into the federal government’s rapidly-expanding genetic surveillance program.

They questioned whether the government’s broader intent was “immigration enforcement,” or a more comprehensive “goal” to build a DNA database large enough to enable broad genetic policing of the general population.

Today, researchers have even more data and argue that such an admission directly contradicts the rationale the government previously relied on to defend the program, publicly conveyed as a method of “identifying” those in DHS custody.

Experts viewed that argument as a legal “smokescreen’ intended to shield the program from constitutional scrutiny under Supreme Court precedent.

The 2026 report continued delving into government intent. Researchers effectively stated that “new evidence corroborates our

original analysis that the true purpose of the federal DNA collection program is to build a massive genetic database for policing the general population.”

Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy for the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, told Military.com that periodical adjustments to their reports have been aided by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in addition to new data.

What the data suggests, Glaberson said, is that DHS’ role has increased no matter who is in power in Washington.

“This report is the first time we have data from the second Trump administration. … This is the first time we’re only seeing a partial picture of what the administration has done over the first year of it being in office,” Glaberson said. “Regardless of administration, this program using DHS and using immigration authorities to carry out this massive DNA collection program has come from Republican and Democratic Administration alike grown since 2020.

“This all kicked off in 2020 with a DOJ [Department of Justice] rule change, and then it didn’t abate during the Biden administration. It continued to grow, and now is even bigger and faster than we ever knew before.”

Rule Changes on Data Collection

The rule changes go back more than 20 years, Glaberson noted.

Legal authority for DHS to collect DNA comes from an amended 2005 law that expanded the authority of the federal government to take DNA from people not just arrested on criminal charges, but “non-U.S. persons” detained under the authority of the United States.

“But that term ‘detained’ is a really loose one, and it means a lot of different things in a lot of different federal contexts,” Glaberson said. “It can mean anyone basically stopped by immigration officials. We talk a lot in our first report about how dangerous that is to hinge anything on the idea of someone being detained because there’s basically no one checking DHS officials’ use and abuse of its detention power, and we’ve seen that a lot recently.”

Between 2005 and 2020, through a series of administrative rules and negotiations, DHS didn’t build out a massive DNA collecting program because it detains that many people, she added.

To skirt regulations formerly in place, she said that the DOJ basically changed the rule to get rid of that exemption and reallocate authority about who decides whether this program should be built out.

And it did build out, Glaberson noted, saying how CODIS data between 2005 and 2020 included roughly 28,000 DNA samples. By the time the Privacy Centers’ first report on the DHS collection was published in 2024, that number had skyrocketed to 1.5 million.

“Now, we’ve seen in just two more years that number more than double,” she said. “We’re at over 3.3 million samples in that index, and nearly 1 million were added just in 2025.

“And one thing that is remarkable about the Trump administration versus prior administrations is that it appears that the majority of that increase—the majority of samples being provided to CODIS for use in criminal policing, are being provided by ICE—which was not the case prior.”

DHS, Trump Administration Reject Narrative

When reached by Military.com to respond to the Georgetown researchers’ data and allegations of a comprehensive DNA collection system lacking past legal guardrails, DHS refuted such claims and pointed at the previous presidential administration.

“During the Biden Administration, reckless policies created chaos at the border,” a DHS spokesperson told Military.com. “We need to know who is in our country. In order to secure our borders, CBP [U.S.Customs and Border Protection) devoted every resource available to identify who was entering our country, making sure we do not let in human smugglers, child sex traffickers, and other criminals into American communities.

“CBP collected DNA samples for submission to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) from persons in CBP custody who were arrested on federal criminal charges—which included U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, and from aliens detained under CBP’s authority who were subject to fingerprinting and not otherwise exempt from the collection requirement.”

The official pointed to 34 U.S.C. § 40702(a)(1)(A), which states that the U.S. attorney general may legally collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested, facing charges or convicted—or from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States. That function can be delegated by the attorney general and authorized for use by other U.S. agencies.

They also pointed to 28 C.F.R. § 28.12(b), which states: “Any agency of the United States that arrests or detains individuals or supervises individuals facing charges shall collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted, and from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States.”

DHS said that “federal law requires law enforcement to collect DNA samples from individuals arrested for federal crimes” under that U.S. code, “including rioters arrested for assaulting or obstructing law enforcement.”

Research ‘Refutes’ Government’s Rationale

Glaberson doesn’t buy the government’s argument, pointing to her and her colleagues’ research and saying their work “refutes the idea that this is at all about identification of those in DHS custody.”

She said similar reasoning led to the rationale that the state of Maryland gave for its criminal policing DNA collection program from criminal arrestees, adding that the Supreme Court has essentially argued that people can’t be searched for evidence of a crime when there’s no suspicion that they committed any.

“The government has tried to wrap themselves in that and say this is about identifying folks in our custody,” Glaberson said. “Well, not only is that not true, [but] the way DNA works in this program is that they’re not testing it on site to identify anything. They are sending it to the FBI where a profile is made, and then it is uploaded and stored in CODIS for future policing purposes.

“So, that’s not about identifying people. That is about using their most sensitive personal biological information to put them in a permanent genetic lineup going forward.”

In May in the Chicago area, a civil complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois challenging the federal government’s collection of DNA from people arrested at anti-ICE protests known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

That information, according to the suit, was then sent to the FBI for permanent inclusion in the national DNA database—even when such individuals are never charged with any crime or face only minor misdemeanor allegations.

DNA, Broader Surveillance and Fighting Back

Questions about DNA collection are coupled with broader surveillance and constitutional arguments presently taking place across the United States.

In what can be described as an unlikely marriage of liberals and conservatives, such issues are galvanizing swaths of Americans against a common perceived enemy. That could be DNA collection, Flock cameras, or AI data centers.

Just within the last week or so, ICE agents were reported to be outfitted with gloves that can deliver electric shocks to alleged agitators and illegal migrants.

Glaberson said all of this is intertwined and under “a creature of statute,” adding that Congress has the ability to put a stop to it tomorrow if were to choose to act. Otherwise, she acknowledges that “it is extremely difficult for an individual confronted with a DHS agent to refuse collection.”

She said that’s because noted instances of rejecting to offer DNA to authorities has led to threats of criminal prosecution. While evidence was scant for decades, documents found in Glaberson’s research circa 2020 showed DHS personnel referring a few cases over to the U.S. attorney—who at the time refused to take any of them forward.

“But now we do have some examples where people are actually being criminally prosecuted for refusing to give DNA,” Glaberson said. “And so, on the individual level, no, there is really no way to stop this but collect.

“We have a lot of power, and so if we can see and understand clearly the way these powers are abused by an authoritarian-minded administration, we can come together to stop it.”