ATLANTA — DNA collection from convicted criminals has become routine practice across America’s justice system over the last thirty years, with many states now extending that practice to individuals arrested for serious offenses.
Pending Georgia legislation awaiting final approval would expand this practice significantly by mandating DNA collection from individuals facing minor misdemeanor charges — but exclusively when federal immigration officials have requested their detention. This could affect immigrants who may never face deportation.
Should the measure pass, Georgia would join just two other states that specifically target immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally for genetic material collection that wouldn’t apply to others. Florida enacted similar legislation in 2023, while Oklahoma authorized comparable DNA collection from undocumented immigrants in 2009, though implementation depends on available funding.
This legislative push coincides with President Donald Trump’s administration working to broaden DNA and biometric data use in immigration enforcement as part of plans to remove millions of people from the United States.
“It is one example of something we are seeing across the landscape, which is government actors at all levels vacuuming up DNA in all available contexts,” said Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University law school.
The FBI established the National DNA Index System in 1998 to consolidate DNA samples from federal, state and local agencies. The system has expanded dramatically and currently holds over 26 million DNA profiles, primarily from individuals with criminal convictions.
Federal legislation from two decades ago permitted the attorney general to extend DNA collection to arrested individuals and noncitizens held under federal authority. However, exceptions granted by federal officials meant few immigrants underwent DNA collection.
This shifted in 2020 during Trump’s initial presidency when a Department of Justice regulation eliminated much of that flexibility. Subsequently, over five years, the Department of Homeland Security incorporated DNA profiles from more than 2.6 million detainees into the national database, according to Center on Privacy and Technology research.
The department declined to provide information to The Associated Press regarding what percentage of detained immigrants have had DNA collected during Trump’s current term.
However, the department seeks expanded authority. A proposed regulation would permit DNA collection, including from U.S. citizens, to establish family connections in immigrant benefit proceedings.
While numerous states gather DNA from felony arrestees, only 10 states collect it from certain misdemeanor arrests, such as sex crimes, and none collect it from all misdemeanor arrests, based on Associated Press analysis of Boise State University Department of Criminal Justice data.
Under Florida and Oklahoma statutes, any arrest could trigger DNA collection for immigrants subject to federal detainer requests. Officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation did not respond to inquiries about implementation of these laws.
The Georgia proposal would mandate DNA collection from immigrants charged with any misdemeanor or felony if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a detainer request but hasn’t collected the individual within 48 hours.
Republican state Sen. Tim Bearden, the bill’s sponsor, characterized the measure as a crime-solving tool.
“Technology is changing quickly, and DNA is one of those things that help us tremendously when we’re trying to make sure to bring justice to victims in this state and across this country,” Bearden said at a March hearing.
The Department of Homeland Security stated that “partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country.”
A 2024 Georgia statute requires local law enforcement cooperation with federal authorities to identify and detain undocumented immigrants or face state funding loss. This year’s proposal would expand upon that requirement.
Legal experts warn it could lead to DNA collection from immigrants detained for minor infractions. Traffic violations treated as civil matters in other states are classified as misdemeanors in Georgia, making them subject to the proposed law, according to Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director and policy advocate with the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“We don’t think that swabbing a person who’s committed a traffic violation is a boon for public safety,” Guertin said. “The correlation between a broken tail light and a crime that’s solvable with DNA is pretty attenuated in most cases.”
Individuals subject to federal immigration detainer requests aren’t necessarily undocumented or deportable, as they may subsequently demonstrate legal status, noted Kyle Gomez-Leineweber, policy director for Common Cause Georgia. Yet such individuals could face DNA collection under the Georgia proposal.
“What this really does is it creates a two-tiered system where some of the DNA would be collected based off of the perception of an individual’s immigration status,” said Gomez-Leineweber.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court validated a Maryland statute permitting DNA collection from individuals charged with — but not convicted of — certain serious crimes. That law allows database inclusion after probable cause determination for detention, requiring deletion if no conviction follows.
The Maryland decision frequently serves as justification for expanded DNA collection. However, some immigrant advocates question whether civil immigration detainers satisfy the probable cause standard necessary for constitutional DNA collection under the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“There doesn’t appear to be any kind of meaningful justification for states to step in to require the collection of DNA — of genetic material — from noncitizens in their custody who have merely been accused of a crime, even a low-level crime,” said Jorge Loweree, managing director of the American Immigration Council. “It seems like this is just an effort to increase the surveillance of noncitizens.”
