Georgia is considering a bill that would expand DNA collection from people held in custody for criminal charges when federal immigration authorities ask local authorities to detain them—an approach that supporters say can help solve crimes and critics say could entangle genetic surveillance with immigration status.
Under the proposal, Georgia would require DNA collection from immigrants facing misdemeanor or felony charges if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a detainer request and ICE has not taken custody within 48 hours, according to the bill described by the Associated Press. The bill would take DNA swabs from people arrested for less serious offenses when a federal detainer is involved, including some immigrants who might later prove they are not deportable.
Supporters frame the DNA collection requirement as a crime-solving tool. Georgia state Sen. Tim Bearden, a Republican sponsoring the measure, described DNA as technology that can help bring justice to victims and said it has value because “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.
If enacted, Georgia would become the third state to single out immigrants believed to be in the U.S. illegally for DNA collection while in custody, based on comparisons cited in the reporting. Florida passed a similar law in 2023, and Oklahoma authorized DNA collection from immigrants in 2009, though it has remained subject to funding.
The bill’s advocates argue that it fits within a broader federal push toward expanding DNA and biometrics in immigration enforcement. The Associated Press reported that the proposal arrives as the Trump administration seeks to expand those tools during efforts to deport millions of people, and it cited analysis from the Center on Privacy and Technology that, during Trump’s first term, a 2020 Department of Justice rule reduced discretion in how DNA would be collected from certain people in detention. The analysis said the Department of Homeland Security added the DNA profiles of more than 2.6 million detainees to the national database over the following five years.
Still, the federal government’s scope of DNA collection from detained immigrants during the second Trump term was not quantified in the reporting. The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions from The Associated Press about the percentage of detained immigrants whose DNA has been collected during the second term, according to the story. In a statement, the department said that “partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country.”
Critics of Georgia’s proposal warn that it could expand DNA collection beyond felony arrests typically targeted by state systems. An AP analysis described that while many states collect DNA from people arrested for felonies, only 10 states collect DNA for certain misdemeanors, and none collect it for all misdemeanor arrests. The reporting also said Georgia’s measure would operate through federal detainer requests, meaning an arrest could lead to DNA sampling for immigrants even when the underlying alleged conduct is relatively minor.
Some defense and policy groups said the potential for expanded collection tied to detainers could sweep in traffic-related conduct that is not typically associated with DNA evidence. Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director and policy advocate with the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said she does not view swabbing people who commit traffic violations as a public-safety benefit and warned that the link to DNA-based solvability can be weak, saying, “We don’t think that swabbing a person who’s committed a traffic violation is a boon for public safety,” and “The correlation between a broken tail light and a crime that’s solvable with DNA is pretty attenuated in most cases.”
Common Cause Georgia also raised concerns about how the policy would distinguish between people in custody. Kyle Gomez-Leineweber, director of policy for Common Cause Georgia, said federal detainer requests do not necessarily mean someone is undocumented or deportable because immigration status can change as cases proceed, and argued that the proposal creates an uneven system, saying, “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.”
Legal experts said the bill could also face constitutional scrutiny. The story cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision upholding Maryland’s law allowing DNA collection from people charged but not yet convicted of certain serious crimes, with the DNA database entry tied to probable cause to detain and with deletion if a person is not ultimately convicted. The AP reporting said immigrant advocates question whether civil immigration detainers meet the probable cause threshold required under the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Jorge Loweree of the American Immigration Council said the policy has no meaningful justification for states to require DNA collection from noncitizens held on low-level allegations, saying, “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,” and adding, “It seems like this is just an effort to increase the surveillance of noncitizens.”
The Associated Press reported that Georgia’s 2024 law already requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities to identify and detain immigrants in the U.S. illegally or lose state funding. The new legislation described by the bill would build on that system by adding a DNA collection requirement when ICE seeks detention for someone charged with a misdemeanor or felony and does not pick them up within 48 hours, according to the reporting.