A California county official asked President Joe Biden to restart DNA testing of migrant families, in a letter sent Tuesday.
Shortly after entering office in 2021, Biden rescinded the Trump administration’s DNA collection program used to verify the identities of migrants. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond expressed concerns about the Biden administration ending the program, saying it could be exploited for human trafficking and the exploitation of children.
“Today, I sent a letter to the Federal Government and President urging them to reimplement DNA testing, accompanied by severe penalties for adults who resist compliance. This is a rational and morally imperative step toward dismantling the vile practice of using children for criminal purposes,” Desmond wrote Tuesday on Twitter. (RELATED: The Biden Admin Is Ushering Tens Of Thousands Of Migrants Each Month To Work In The US Through Key Border Program)
The Biden administration withdrew the Trump plan to cut down on administrative “barriers and undue burdens” within the immigration system.
NEW: In a letter to @POTUS— San Diego County Supervisor @jim_desmond calls for reinstatement of DNA testing for unaccompanied minors at the southern border—Demanding it be mandatory, “The stark humanitarian crisis we face demands immediate and effective solutions. Cartels and… pic.twitter.com/AfIPogWo7z
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) September 5, 2023
A previous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pilot program found that 16 out of 84 families were “fraudulent families” that weren’t actually related, and a separate program discovered that out of a total of 522 migrant families, 79 were fraudulent.
The month of August saw a surge of illegal migrant encounters at the southern border that included a record number of roughly 91,000 family members crossing, according to The Washington Post.
“The reports of individuals fraudulently claiming children as their own and subsequently separating them from their true guardians are harrowing and unacceptable. This inhumane practice must be brought to an immediate halt through the reinstatement of DNA testing,” Desmond wrote on Twitter.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues to provide rapid DNA testing services to ensure continued compliance with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California issued order in the Ms. L v. ICE litigation case that provides standards governing the separation of parents from their children,” the CBP said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundaiton. “The order requires DHS to conduct a DNA test prior to separating an adult from a child based on concerns about the validity of a claimed parent-child relationship.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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