CHR - Another Border Crime Breakdown

Welcome to “The Debrief”

Immigration consistently polls as a top election issue.

Every month, the newsletter shares updates on our ongoing investigative projects.  We don’t just pick up a story and drop it. We stay with it, demanding accountability.

After our investigation “Rape, Murder and Violent Crime” into violations of DNA collection laws at the border for illegal entries, we have uncovered new evidence.

Top Line: Another Border Crime Breakdown

This week, we have exclusively reviewed emails that indicate Homeland Security’s internal watchdog, the Inspector General, refuses to investigate the department after it failed to fully comply with DNA collection laws for illegal border entries.

…..Even when the IG was presented with third party evidence from the Office of Special Counsel, the Government Accountability Office and the Inspector General’s own internal audit division.

Homeland Security’s failure to collect DNA, an investigative tool used to identify violent criminals, may have been a contributing factor in Rachel Morin’s August 2023 murder and many other violent crimes. 

We recently sat down with three Customs and Border Protection Whistleblowers who were retaliated against, according to federal investigators, after they spoke up about non-compliance with the DNA law. Their firearms were taken away to humiliate them.

“In a law enforcement environment, publicly removing someone's firearm is the ‘rubber gun squad’,” one whistleblower explained. “The ultimate insult and degradation.”

Deep Dive

In August, our investigative team exclusively revealed an internal government memo from the Office of Special Counsel that indicated Customs and Border Protection (CBP) whistleblowers, Fred Wynn, Mark Jones and Mike Taylor, were retaliated against because they spoke out against violations of federal law at the Department of Homeland Security.

The 2021 memo says the border agency’s actions “...were motivated by the agency’s displeasure with the Complainants’ perceived and actual involvement in bringing to light the agency’s intentional, decade-long failure to implement a law designed to protect public safety.”

The three whistleblowers, with nearly 7 decades of law enforcement experience, told our team the alleged retaliation was severe, and designed to humiliate.

“The only ones disciplined are sitting right here,”  Taylor explained. “I've had my law enforcement credentials and a firearm taken away from me. I've had my law enforcement retirement taken away from me, and we'll tell you this.  In a law enforcement environment, publicly removing someone's firearm is the ultimate insult and degradation.”

Wynn explained his professional options disappeared. “I was basically iced,  left to sit at my desk every day, to do nothing but the most menial tasks.  My future career options, because I was working in such a limited sphere, all that future potential vanished in a day.”

Jones said he was demoted three levels, and  “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. Not in 75 years  or so of combined service have one of us even had a written or verbal disciplinary action.”

Between them, the whistleblowers also drew sobering conclusions about Homeland Security’s failure to collect DNA at the border and its impact on public safety.

“Americans are dead and these deaths were preventable,” Fred Wynn told our team.

A Homeland Security Directive shows the Border Agency is required to collect DNA samples from non-US persons detained on immigration violations.  Known as the DNA Fingerprint act, it passed in 2005 with bi-partisan support.

Whistleblower Mark Jones showed our team how border agents are supposed to collect DNA in the field.  

After the DNA is collected from illegal entries via a cheek swab, it’s sent to an FBI lab for processing. The DNA collection takes 30 seconds and the FBI provided kits cost about $4 a pack. The DNA database is a valuable law enforcement tool that identifies suspects in violent crimes including rape, assault and murder.  

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to fully comply with the DNA collection law.  Since 2021, under the Biden Harris Administration, Homeland Security’s own data reports more than 10 million border encounters.

The August 2023 sexual assault and murder of Rachel Morin on a Maryland hiking trail haunts the whistleblowers because they believe Homeland Security’s failure to comply with the DNA collection law may have been a contributing factor in the 37-year-old mother’s death.

According to the whistleblowers, the 23-year-old suspect Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez from El Salvador, an alleged gang member, had multiple encounters with border agents, but apparently DNA was never collected. 

“We understand (CBP) had three bites at the apple with this subject and never took it,” Mark Jones explained..

Fred Wynn went further, explaining, “Had the subject had DNA taken the first time they were encountered, there would've been an instant possibility that any future criminal activity would've been stopped immediately, and there was definite potential for the individual to be apprehended.”

Six months before Morin’s murder, the suspect is accused of a brutal home invasion and assault of a young child.

“I think if due diligence was exercised, and complied with the law, DNA was collected, we would've known who we were looking for on behalf of the little girl and the young lady out in Los Angeles and hopefully interdicted him long before he got to Maryland,” Taylor said.

Asked if Homeland Security had failed Rachel Morin and her family, Jones was emphatic. “In the context of not collecting the DNA that is mandated by law, they did not do it. There's no other answer …”

Homeland Security Internal Watchdog: No Investigative Interest

After our investigation on X received more than 24 million views, we wanted to know if Homeland Security’s internal watchdog, the Inspector General, would open a probe into the department’s failure to comply with federal DNA collection laws.  

Think about it. Homeland Security's job is to uphold the law and to keep Americans safe, but federal investigators found the department was not complying with the law to identify violent criminal suspects, and the whistleblowers allege it was done knowingly.

While the independent, third party evidence of non-compliance with federal law comes from multiple agencies, according to the whistleblowers, Homeland Security’s internal watchdog has not initiated its own investigation. The IG findings would go to Secretary Mayorkas for corrective action.

According to recent government data, DNA is collected in less than 40% of illegal entries. This has taken on even more urgency with recent disclosures to Congress from Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the release into American communities of illegal entries who are convicted criminals or face pending charges.

The whistleblowers wrote:

“In light of the DHS and CBP documented less-than 37% DNA Collection Compliance Rate for all noncitizen encounters, the outstanding question, with respect to the 662,566 non-detained known Convicted and Pending Criminal Charges noncitizens is, given the known and foreseeable risk, at what rate are/were DNA Samples taken? 

“After nearly seven (7) years of Joint Intake Center (JIC) filings, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Hotline filings, and direct emails and letters to your attention, I nor my colleagues have been contacted by members of your Office of Investigations.”

“I hesitate to use the word ‘unprecedented’ and yet in this case it seems to sum up this situation. I am asking the quiet question out loud, what will it take for the DHS OIG to protect legitimate and confirmed Whistleblowers and address the historical and ongoing threats to Public Safety, National Security, and safeguard the very citizens the Department of Homeland Security was created to protect?”

In response, the Office of the Inspector General sent three automated complaint numbers. None of the whistleblowers have been contacted for interviews by IG investigators.  And when they inquired about the complaint numbers, they were directed to the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA.

The press office for Homeland Security’s Inspector General did not respond to our questions about its apparent refusal to investigate. Our team will continue to pursue accountability, and provide updates.

Thank you for subscribing, supporting and sharing our investigative work.

Inside the SCIF

In national security and intelligence circles, a SCIF or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility is used for classified records and discussions.

Our SCIF is an open forum for comments, questions, and suggestions for future projects.

No security clearance needed! The floor is yours.

This week, we had feedback about the CBS Kamala Harris 60 Minutes transcript and questionable video editing practices at the network.

CBS News has not been able to contain the controversy. New allegations of selective editing emerged after Speaker Johnson was interviewed by Margaret Brennan on the Sunday Politics show Face the Nation.

As we reported this week, CBS News is now accused of "news distortion" in an FCC complaint. The FCC does investigate allegations of “distortion.” This is distinct from discretionary editorial choices.

501c3 Center for American Rights seeks "complete transcript" Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview.

We reached out to a CBS News spokesman for comment, but while they received the request, no comment provided.

Submit your questions to [email protected]