Four protesters arrested during a federal immigration enforcement operation are suing the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, claiming the government violated their constitutional rights by collecting DNA samples during peaceful protests and feeding that genetic data into federal surveillance databases.
The lawsuit, filed in Illinois federal court, centers on arrests made during “Operation Midway Blitz” at the Broadview ICE facility near Chicago. What’s particularly striking about the case isn’t just the DNA collection itself, but the alleged infrastructure being built around it: a vast surveillance system designed to track protesters, their movements, their associations, and now their genetic profiles.
The DNA Collection Was Questionable From the Start
Here’s where the legal argument gets sharp. The Supreme Court has ruled that DNA collection is permissible only under narrow circumstances: when someone is validly arrested with probable cause for a serious offense, confirmed by a judicial officer, and solely for identification purposes. The DNA cannot be mined for information about relatives or health conditions.
Out of 92 non-immigration arrests at Broadview, only one person was convicted. That conviction wasn’t even related to the protest.
Two of the four plaintiffs faced charges of impeding a federal officer that were quickly dropped. The other two were never charged with any crime at all. Grace Cooper actually refused to provide DNA but was compelled anyway, a violation she now challenges. Yet all four have permanent genetic profiles in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the federal database meant for serious criminal investigations.
Illinois state law is even stricter. The state only permits DNA collection from people arrested for first-degree murder, home invasion, or sexual assault, and only after a judge or jury determines probable cause. None of these conditions existed when federal agents collected from the protesters.
How the DNA Act Became a Tool for Mass Surveillance
The DNA Act was amended in 2006 to permit collection from anyone arrested for any crime, regardless of severity. What Congress likely didn’t anticipate was how technology would outpace the law. DNA analysis has become vastly more sophisticated since then, capable of extracting information Congress never intended to authorize. Yet the statute hasn’t been updated accordingly.
The protesters allege that privacy impact assessments, which serve as internal checks against civil rights violations, have been dismantled. In 2026, zero assessments have been reported, down from eight in 2025 and 24 in 2024.
Perhaps most troubling: there’s virtually no way to get DNA samples destroyed or expunged from the database. The process could take five years and comes with additional costs. Meanwhile, federal agents can access your genetic profile indefinitely.
The Bigger Picture: DNA as Part of a Coordinated Surveillance Apparatus
The protesters aren’t arguing in isolation. Their lawsuit situates DNA collection within a larger, rapidly expanding federal surveillance infrastructure they say is deliberately targeting people who object to immigration policies.
This infrastructure includes facial recognition technology called Mobile Fortify, which lawmakers have already flagged as unconstitutional. There’s also a companion app, Mobile Identify, that lets local police coordinate with ICE officers to identify suspects. And then there’s the tracking system itself: DHS apparently built parallel infrastructure using location and social media data to monitor Americans’ physical movements and political viewpoints.
In January, Border Czar Tom Holan said he was “pushing for” a database of individuals arrested at protests, pledging to “make them famous.” Around the same time, DHS sent a memo ordering agents to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protesters, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form.”
The implication is chilling: DNA could become another data point in a comprehensive system for tracking identities, movements, associations, and genetic profiles of people who criticize the government’s immigration policies, along with their family members.
Training Shortfalls and Constitutional Corners Cut
DHS didn’t just expand its surveillance capabilities. It also rushed to staff up. The agency cut more than 240 hours of training courses, eliminating weeks of instruction on crowd control, constitutional law, lawful arrests, and the limits of officer authority. A former ICE assistant chief counsel testified to Congress that “ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution.”
This matters because it explains how four people, none convicted of serious crimes and two facing dropped charges, ended up arrested and DNA-swabbed in the first place.
Dana Briggs, a 71-year-old Air Force veteran, was wearing a “Vets against Trump” shirt when he asked an ICE agent why he needed to clear the area. After raising his phone to record, Briggs was shoved, fell, and reflexively swatted an officer’s hand while trying to pass his phone to another protester. He was arrested, held in federal prison without medication for a heart condition, and charged with assault and resisting officers.
Then DHS reviewed body-camera footage and dropped the charges. The judge hearing the case was apparently so appalled that the court took the unusual step of publicly releasing the video. The judge noted that agents “sought to strike hard blows” and “swung and missed multiple times.”
Ian Sampson, a 27-year-old photographer, was pinned down in the same manner that DHS later glorified in an Instagram recruitment post showing “aggressive physical enforcement against civilians.” Sampson chipped a tooth and nearly suffocated before inhaling tear gas. He was released without charges.
Jacqueline Guataquira was arrested for reflexively swatting away an agent’s phone. Grace Cooper described her arrest as “the most terrifying 90 seconds of her life.” She was slammed to the ground by an agent who, when questioned by other officers, couldn’t articulate what crime she’d committed.
The Chilling Effect Is Already Working
All four plaintiffs have drastically reduced their protest activity. They worry about being placed on watchlists, about what the government might do with their DNA, about whether their families could be tracked or targeted through genetic data.
Guataquira has deleted social media posts. Sampson has largely withdrawn from activism. Cooper fears airports, traffic stops, and consequences she can’t anticipate. Their self-censorship isn’t paranoia. It’s a rational response to what the government has explicitly stated as its goal.
Carey R. Dunne, representing Briggs through the Free + Fair Litigation Group, told The New York Times that this litigation addresses “a constellation of constitutional violations.” He characterized the surveillance infrastructure on an “authoritarian scale of one to 10” as “a 10.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the DNA Act, as applied in these circumstances, is unconstitutional and to order the destruction of the plaintiffs’ DNA samples. They argue that the Constitution “does not permit the government to convert participation in a protest into a basis for indefinite access to a person’s most private biological information.”
If unchecked, the government could systematically build a genetic database of anyone it claims to arrest during a protest, collect DNA, then release them without charges. The DNA remains forever. The surveillance infrastructure grows. The chilling effect spreads.
Briggs said it plainly to The New York Times: “If we don’t have a right to our own selves, everything is going to break down.”
