ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
ICE is aggressively expanding the collection of DNA samples from individuals held for civil immigration violations, funneling nearly one million profiles into the FBI's criminal database. This practice continues despite the fact that most detainees have no criminal record, raising significant privacy and civil liberty concerns.
Why it matters
The integration of civil immigration detention data into criminal law enforcement databases creates a permanent, searchable genetic record for individuals who have not been convicted of crimes.
According to a criminal complaint reviewed by WIRED, officers drove Moreno-Mendez to a nearby ICE field office. There, one deportation officer after another approached him with the same demand.
Open your mouth.
One officer tried to take his fingerprints and swab the inside of his cheek for DNA. He refused. Then another tried. Then a third. Each time, Moreno-Mendez refused.
Four days later, Moreno-Mendez was charged with failing to register as a noncitizen and refusing to provide DNA while in federal custody—the latter a misdemeanor that, as of 2021, ICE itself said it was unaware had ever been accepted for prosecution.
Moreno-Mendez took both counts to trial. On August 18, 2025, a magistrate judge in Waco found him guilty of each and sentenced him to time served.
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