It’s hardly surprising these days to find evidence of bureaucratic incompetence. Even outright malpractice in/among federal agencies is, unfortunately, not uncommon. But Catherine Herridge’s recent reports on the fate of three Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents after they became whistleblowers and revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has knowingly broken the law for decades when it comes to DNA collection are, frankly, unbelievable.
Herridge met with three whistleblowers, Mark Jones, Mike Taylor and Fred Wynn, who have nearly 70 years of combined law enforcement experience, to discuss their allegations regarding the agency’s failures and retaliation against them for coming forward.
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Subscribe on X @C__Herridge pic.twitter.com/x9e6RjGJKH
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) 11 August 2024
The video is about 10.5 minutes long and worth watching. I won’t transcribe it in full here, but I’d like to point out some of the highlights.
First, the DNA collection law in question has been in effect since 2005, when it was passed with bipartisan support. It requires the collection of DNA samples from “non-U.S. citizens detained for immigration violations.” According to the whistleblowers, DHS does not enforce this law – at least not fully – and has not done so under Democratic and Republican administrations.
A December 2021 internal memo from the U.S. special counsel regarding their investigation into the allegations made by Jones, Taylor and Wynn said the agency intentionally failed to implement the law – which is intended to protect public safety – for decades.
None of the three has ever seen a policy such as the one establishing the DNA collection protocol ignored as much as this one.
The DNA testing kit used costs $4. It involves taking a 30-second swab from the inside of a person’s cheek to collect saliva and epithelial cells. This is used to collect DNA from people who are arrested and investigated for immigration violations. Once collected, the DNA is sent to the FBI lab for processing, which takes about 72 hours. It helps identify suspects and provides law enforcement with investigative leads. In fact, the process has helped solve over 1,000 cases.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has proclaimed the agency’s failure to comply with the law and retaliation against whistleblowers. Data cited by Grassley in his May 22, 2024 report, letter According to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, nearly 70 percent of encounters at the border did not involve DNA collection, as required by law.
Up to 950,000 violent criminals could not be identified because the required DNA collection was not used – an estimate that spans the years 2010 to 2019. This does not even take into account the millions more people who have crossed the border illegally since then.
Taylor, Wynn and Jones are all certain that the law’s continued, willful failure to enforce the law has resulted in American deaths – deaths that could have been avoided. One example is the 2023 murder of Rachel Morin by Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Martinez-Hernandez is accused of murdering another woman in El Salvador before fleeing to the United States. Martinez-Hernandez had at least three encounters with border agents – as Jones notes, “We believe we made three attempts on this subject.”
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When Herridge asked him about the impact of this ongoing failure of the DHS on the American public, Wynn made a very pertinent point:
“We know for a fact that not every person who crosses the border illegally into the United States goes on to commit violent acts. But given the numbers, even a very small percentage leads to a significant increase in crime within the United States.”
The whistleblowers confirm that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was informed of the noncompliance with the law, but that no one at DHS was disciplined for this violation.
The only ones who faced disciplinary action were the whistleblowers themselves. The internal OSC memo mentioned above concluded that the agency had taken retaliatory actions against the whistleblowers, including denial of promotion, hostile work environment, and reputational damage. The OSC refused to disclose the memo, and the whistleblowers could only obtain it through disclosure. They had to spend their own money to prove in court that they had been subjected to these retaliatory actions.
Taylor and Jones were stripped of their warrants and weapons. Taylor’s pension was canceled. Taylor notes, “In a police environment, the greatest insult and humiliation is to publicly take away someone’s weapon.” Wynn: “I was essentially sidelined – I had to sit at my desk every day and do nothing but the most menial tasks.” Jones says, “I was demoted three levels. Like Mr. Taylor, I was stripped of my weapon, my warrants. And that was the death knell for my professional career. And what we did was we came forward.” And that was despite the fact that neither man had ever received any written or verbal disciplinary action.
Jones sums it up like this:
“One of the supervisors said matter-of-factly, ‘The goal of the agency is to bankrupt you, make you quit, die, kill yourself, or basically, preferably, all of the above.'”
With over 2 million views, our border investigation is gaining traction.
This is the whistleblower exchange you can’t miss!
“One of the superiors said the agency’s goal is to bankrupt you, make you give up, make you die, kill yourself, or basically anything… https://t.co/riqc3mgefm pic.twitter.com/Iumdhb5VZK
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) 12 August 2024
According to Herridge’s report, a CBP spokesperson claimed that DNA samples were collected at most such border crossings, but did not provide information on the compliance rate.
