ICE moves to DNA-test families targeted for deportation with new contract | Advocates worry the tests will pave the way for the Trump Administration to separate children from their caregivers

> The Trump administration is seeking to issue a contract worth up to $25 million to DNA-test families being targeted for deportation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

> The effort coincides with a dramatic increase in immigration arrests in the nation’s interior, with ICE apprehending people at court hearings as well as high school students and families with children who are US citizens — groups ICE has not historically pursued. On Wednesday, CNN reported that ICE has taken roughly 500 children from their homes and into government custody through so-called welfare checks since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

> In mid-May, the agency issued a contract to SNA International LLC, which was founded in the wake of 9/11 to identify remains in mass fatality events. On May 23, Bode Cellmark Forensics Inc. filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office challenging the award, which wasn’t open to other bidders. ICE issued a stop-work order on May 27 in response to the protest, according to an emailed statement from the agency.

> Advocates say giving ICE’s Enforcement and Removals office, which oversees deportations, the ability to DNA-test families would pave the way for the administration to separate children from the adults who care for them. Last week, Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem outlining what he called “grave concerns” over recent incidents in which children were separated from their primary caregivers.

> “By leaning heavily on who is actually blood related, there is a good chance that we will see caregivers” such as “godfathers and godmothers being taken away from children,” said Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group previously sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose data related to its rapid DNA testing at the border. “Families are much more complicated than this regime is determining they are.”