Government to collect immigrant DNA

The Justice Department reports that it's working on plans to implement a new program to add DNA samples from undocumented immigrants to the FBI's national crime database. Last year, President Bush signed a bill expanding the federal DNA collection program to include non-U.S. citizens and those arrested or detained, as part of a broader policy to fight terrorism. This new plan, pushed by Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl, would expand the database, which currently includes only those convicted felonies and some misdemeanors, to include individuals who may never have been convicted of any crime.

Those detained at the border or an airport, or those in raids like those recently done at the Swift & Co. plants, would be required under these new provisions to supply DNA samples to the government regardless of the ultimate outcome of their cases.

"People will end up in this database even without probable cause for their arrest or detention," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest group in Washington, D.C.

tags: immigration, DNA , detainees, privacy rights

The amendment to expand of the database, which Kyle had tacked on to the 2005 Violence Against Women Act, drew criticism at the time on numerous grounds due to concerns about civil liberties violations. Originally, the federal DNA database was limited to convicted sex offenders, then it was expanded to include violent felons. Under the provisions of the Kyle amendment the database was further expanded to include those suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities for any reason, but not necessarily convicted of any crime

The Justice Department is now engaged in determining just how to implement the provisions of the bill.

"The (Department of Justice) is engaged in extensive consultation with affected agencies and is moving forward to issue the implementing regulations," department spokesman Erick Ablin confirmed Thursday
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Depending on how broadly the final rule is written, it could affect a range of departments and agencies, from the FBI, Homeland Security Department and Drug Enforcement Administration, to the National Park Service.

Arizonia Republic

Clearly any planned implementation of the plan would effect the thousands of undocumented and suspected undocumented immigrants detained or arrested ever year for violations ranging from illegal entry and possessing fraudulent identification to expired visas and being "out of status" due to paperwork processing delays.

Opponents point out the broader implications of the new policy.

Someone selected for a secondary screening at an airport is, technically, being detained and could be required to provide a DNA sample, said Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel for the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

So could someone selected for inspection while crossing the border, or those detained as material witnesses to a crime.

"All of these situations can have innocent people's DNA entered into the database," Sparapani said.

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But already, the government has access to more than 3.5 million DNA records, and that the number is expanding dramatically, said Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest group in Washington, D.C.

Some also warn that the larger the DNA database gets, the greater the chance of finding two samples that look the same but are not from the same person.

"When you have a database filled with people presumed to be criminal and add people simply for all kinds of non-criminal reasons and mistakes, you've diluted your database and mistakes can be made," Sparapani said.

Roberto Reveles, president of the Phoenix-based immigrant rights group, Somos America, said the DNA database expansion shows that "Big Brother is going really fast." He said the tactic represents a violation of privacy and he hopes conservative Americans will join in "making the loudest protests against this."

Arizonia Republic

Given the questionable tactics used in the most recent meatpacking raids, the detention of US citizens alongside their foreign-born family members, the discrepancies between the numbers detained and the numbers actually charged with a crime, the inability or unwillingness of government authorities to disclose the whereabouts of detainees, and the well known ineffectualness and ineptitude of the immigration services, the notion of granting them the power to collect this kind of personal data borders on the ludicrous at best ….if not the criminal.

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Microchip implant might be used on immigrant guest workers

Originally designed as a means to access medical records, track Alzheimers patients or tag pets, the RFID technology made by Florida based Applied Digital may now be used as a method to keep track of the thousands of immigrant guest workers. According to Applied Digital's Chairman and CEO, Scott Silverman, he has been in contact with "key congressional leaders" about the application of his Radio Frequency Identification microchips as a "technology platform for the guest worker program."

Applied Digital's implants, which are about the size of a grain of rice, contain a sixteen digit ID number. That number, once scanned, can be linked to a database to provide the name and address of a pet owner or access the medical records of a critically ill patient. Some implants have also been used in nursing homes to monitor people with Alzheimer's in an effort to keep them from wandering off. Silverman believes the technology can easily be modified for use not only at the border, "but it could also be used for enforcement purposes at the employer level."



tags: immigration, Guest Workers, microchip implant , Tommy Thompson, Applied Digital, Senate Immigration Bill



In a interview with RFID Connections, an industry publication, Silvermen explained his pitch for the use of his microchip technology in tracking guest workers:

But being able to communicate a new application, potentially, for the VeriChip technology as it relates to the Guest Worker Program and the new immigration bill that came out of the Senate yesterday, I think it’s a relevant technology that can be used amongst other technologies to properly ensure that guest workers coming in and out of this country are properly registered, and that the enforcement that’s necessary to make the law work and the Guest Worker Program work can also take place at the employer level. So whether it’s biometrics, whether it’s a smart card of sorts, a tamper-proof visa or a VeriChip related to those things, I think the VeriChip is a very logical technology to use for that…

Silverman's company, which has lost millions of dollars over the last few years trying to sell their invasive product to a wary North American market, has been waiting for just this kind of opportunity. With the addition of former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to their Board of directors in July of 2005, Applied Digital gained an important inside the beltway contact to help sell their plan. Thompson in fact is so taken with the technology, he announced he planned to have one of the companies medical "VeriMed" tags implanted into his arm. Normally, the chip is injected below the skin into fat tissue above the triceps muscle on a person's upper right arm.

Thompson is not the only one lobbying for the use of the microchip technology. According to Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA), Columbian President Alfaro Uribe actually floated the idea of placing chips in Columbian migrant workers wishing to become guest workers in the US. In a meeting with Specter in early April of this year Uribe is reported as telling the Senator "he would consider having Colombian workers have microchips implanted into their bodies before they are permitted to enter the United States to work on a seasonal basis." Specter replied that he "doubted whether the implantation of microchips would be effective since the immigrant worker might be able to remove them." Specters staff would not confirm whether or not microchip technology was being discussed as a part of immigration reform.

When asked if the government had in fact contracted to buy the system Silverman replied that, "No, they have not. We have talked to many people in Washington about using it as an application for a guest worker program. But we cannot say today that they have actually bought it for immigration purposes." But he is hopeful.

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