DHS wants to collect eye scans, voice prints, DNA from migrants

Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it is working on a new rule to use eye scans, voice patterns or facial identity to verify migrants’ identities, saying the tools are needed to screen out bogus applicants.

The department also said it is proposing rules governing collection of DNA and using DNA tests to verify relationships when a group of people claiming to be a family shows up asking for a benefit.

“Leveraging readily available technology to verify the identity of an individual we are screening is responsible governing,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the No. 2 official at Homeland Security.

But Trump critics saw something nefarious in the moves.

The American Civil Liberties Union saw the collection as a way to make immigration “as difficult as possible.”

“The Trump administration is, once again, trying to radically change America’s immigration system,” said Andrea Flores, ACLU’s deputy director of immigration policy.

She also worried how the government would handle the information.

“Collecting a massive database of genetic blueprints won’t make us safer — it will simply make it easier for the government to surveil and target our communities and to bring us closer to a dystopian nightmare,” she said.

The Trump administration has put a particular focus on trying to weed out fraud in the immigration system. Broad studies of the level of fraud have not been done, but individual cases suggest it’s easy and widespread.

Sometimes the fraud involves bogus claims of family relationships.

During last year’s border surge, tens of thousands of illegal immigrant adults showed with children claiming to be parents. Investigators suspected many of those claims were bogus and began using voluntary DNA tests, which snared hundreds of cases of fake families.

The new rules would authorize Homeland Security to make more widespread use of DNA.

“By using DNA or DNA tests to establish bona fide genetic relationship between adults and minors in DHS custody, DHS can better protect the well-being of children,” the department said.

The biometric measures such as eye scans and voice prints would be used for identification purposes, the department said, calling it part of a transition from dependence on paper documents and biographical information and toward a more scientific approach.