The Trump administration will, yet again, conduct rapid DNA testing on some migrant families at the southern border, CNN reports, “to help identify and prosecute individuals posing as families in an effort to target human smuggling.” A Homeland Security official told CNN that the DNA testing, which shows results in about 90 minutes, “will run for two to three days in two border locations.”
The administration has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that individuals are posing as “fake families” with “recycled” kids in order to cross the border and be detained for as short a time as possible. Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement “did not provide any specific instances where such activity took place,” BuzzFeed reported last month.
This isn’t the first time the administration has done this, either: Officials also conducted DNA testing on families that were forcibly separated last year and scattered throughout various detention facilities without proper record keeping, and, just like then, advocates are rightfully concerned about issues including privacy and consent.
