Perverse Outcomes

Decisions to make the children of people coming into the United States illegally safer have had the perverse consequence of endangering them. At CNN Priscilla Alvarez reports that DNA testing of “families” suspect of being nothing of the kind has found an alarming percentage of frauds:

The Department of Homeland Security is considering next steps in DNA testing on the southern border, following a pilot program that concluded last week.

DHS ran the DNA pilot program to help identify and prosecute individuals posing as families in an effort to target human smuggling. The Rapid DNA testing, as it’s known, involves a cheek swab and can, on average, provide results in about 90 minutes.

“We’re continuing to analyze the results of the DNA, analyze where we think it’d be appropriate in the processing line,” said Alysa Erichs, acting executive associate director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

ICE has briefed acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan on the DNA testing, Erichs said.

Before the DNA pilot program, ICE Homeland Security Investigations personnel had been deployed to the border in April to investigate human smuggling and the use of fraudulent documents to “create fake families.” There are now 130 Homeland Security Investigations personnel at the border.

As of Friday, Homeland Security Investigations teams, which consist of agents and specialists, had interviewed 562 families who presented some indication of fraud. Homeland Security Investigations identified 95 fraudulent families through interviews and 176 fraudulent families through fake documents.

The administration has argued that the limit on how long migrant children can be held in detention is a pull factor because it guarantees release, prompting some individuals to pose as families.

The prospect of an interview or, more recently, a DNA test has led some migrants posing as families to concede that they are not related, Erichs said. In cases where migrants have conceded that they have no familial connection, ICE has referred the adults for criminal prosecution and turned over the minors to the care of the Health and Human Services Department.

In other words when it becomes known that travelling with a child eases your way into the United States, inevitably more people seeking to enter the United States travel with children. DNA testing has now demonstrated that some of the children with whom these people are travelling are not their own.

What will become of these children once these “families” are admitted? Will they be abandoned? Sold? Given to relatives already in the United States? How could we ever know? This entire situation has left us in the position in which there’s a moral imperative to keep families together and a moral imperative to separate them.