DHS Whistleblowers Faced Retaliation After Exposing Agency's Failure to Comply With DNA Law
Finding evidence of bureaucratic incompetency these days is hardly surprising. Even outright malfeasance in/among federal agencies, sadly, isn't a rarity. But the latest reporting from Catherine Herridge regarding the fate of three Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers following their stepping forward as whistleblowers to expose the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has knowingly failed to follow the law for decades regarding DNA collection is, frankly, mindboggling.
Herridge sat down with the three whistleblowers, Mark Jones, Mike Taylor, and Fred Wynn, who have nearly 70 years of law enforcement experience between them, to discuss their claims regarding the agency's failures and the retaliatory efforts taken against them for stepping forward.
The video runs roughly 10-and-a-half minutes and is worth the watch. I won't transcribe all of it here, but want to point out several of the highlights from it.
First, the DNA collection law at issue has been on the books since 2005, when it passed with bipartisan support. It requires the collection of DNA samples from "non-United States persons in detention for immigration violations." Per the whistleblowers, DHS is not enforcing that law — certainly not fully — and hasn't been under both Democrat and Republican administrations.
A December 2021 internal government memo from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel regarding its investigation of the charges levied by Jones, Taylor, and Wynn found that the agency had intentionally failed to implement the law — designed to protect public safety — for decades.
None of the three have ever seen a directive like the one that lays out the DNA collection protocol be ignored as this one has been.
The DNA test kit used costs $4. It involves a 30-second process for swabbing the inside of an individual's cheek to obtain saliva and epithelial cells. It is to be used to collect DNA from individuals detained and processed for immigration violations. Once collected, it's sent to the FBI laboratory for processing, which takes about 72 hours. It helps to identify suspects and give an investigative lead to law enforcement agencies. The process has actually helped solve over 1,000 cases.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has called out the failure of the agency to follow the law and the retaliatory efforts taken against the whistleblowers. Data cited by Grassley in his May 22, 2024, letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari indicates that nearly 70 percent of border encounters did not include DNA collection as required by law.
As many as 950,000 violent criminals were left unidentified due to the failure to utilize the required DNA collection — an estimate which spanned the years 2010 through 2019, so it doesn't even begin to touch the millions more who've illegally crossed the border since then.
Taylor, Wynn, and Jones all are confident that the continued, willful failure to enforce the law has resulted in American deaths — deaths that were preventable. Rachel Morin's 2023 murder at the hands of Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, is an example. Martinez-Hernandez is accused of murdering another woman in El Salvador before fleeing to the U.S. Martinez-Hernandez had at least three encounters with border agents — as Jones notes, "We understand we had three bites at the apple with this subject."
Wynn made a very salient point when asked by Herridge about the impact of this continuing failure on the part of DHS on the American public:
"We know for a fact that not every individual who crosses the border illegally into the United States goes on to commit violent acts. But given the number, even a very small percentage results in a definite increase in crime within the United States."
The whistleblowers affirm that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been notified of the failure to comply with the law, but no one at DHS has been disciplined for that failure.
The only ones who have been disciplined are the whistleblowers themselves. The internal OSC memo referenced above concluded that the agency retaliated against the whistleblowers, including denial of promotion, hostile work environment, and reputational harm. The OSC refused to disclose the memo, and the whistleblowers were only able to obtain it via discovery. They have had to spend their own money to pursue litigation to confirm that they were subject to that retaliation.
Both Taylor and Jones have had their law enforcement credentials and firearms taken away from them. Taylor has had his law enforcement retirement stripped. Taylor notes, "In a law enforcement environment, publicly removing someone's firearm is the ultimate insult and degradation." Per Wynn, "I was basically iced — left to sit at my desk every day, do nothing but the most menial of tasks." States Jones, "I was demoted three levels. Like Mr. Taylor, my firearm was taken, my credentials were taken. And it was the final blow to a professional career. And what we did, was we came forward." This despite the fact that none of the men had ever received a written or verbal disciplinary action.
Jones sums it up thusly:
"One of the supervisors said, very matter of fact: 'The agency's goal is to bankrupt you, make you quit, die, kill yourselves, or basically, preferably, all of the above.'"
Per Herridge's report, a CBP spokesperson asserted that DNA samples are collected from a majority of applicable border encounters but offered no specifics regarding the rate of compliance.
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