Screenshot from @C__Herridge on X
CV NEWS FEED // Three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblowers told journalist Catherine Herridge that the department has contributed to the deaths of Americans by “not fully” enforcing a federal law at the border.
“Preventable” American deaths, including the brutal murder of Rachel Morin, occurred as a result of the department’s failure to uphold the law, the whistleblowers said.
Herridge posted her ten-minute interview of the three Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees to X on Sunday night. CBP is an agency of DHS.
She wrote that per a leaked government memo, the whistleblowers “were targeted by” the Biden-Harris administration’s CBP “after exposing [that a] federal DNA Collection law was not followed for immigration violations.”
“This law is on the books?” Herridge asked the whistleblowers Michael Taylor, Fred Wynn, and Mark Jones.
“Yes,” all three responded in unison. Taylor, Wynn, and Jones have 31, 18, and 20 years of law enforcement experience respectively.
“Is Homeland Security enforcing the DNA collection law?” Herridge asked them.
“Not fully,” replied Wynn.
“As a result are Americans less safe?” Herridge followed up.
Again, the three men all answered “Yes.”
“Americans are dead and these deaths were preventable,” said Wynn.
During the interview, Herridge held up the memo for the whistleblowers to see.
“This internal memo confirms that you were retaliated against because you spoke out against officials at Homeland Security who you believe were violating the law,” Herridge said – an assertion with which all of the whistleblowers agreed.
The journalist then read the memo’s conclusion, which pointed to CBP’s “intentional, decade-long failure to implement a law designed to protect public safety.”
Taylor confirmed that CBP “knowingly” violated the Bush-era law.
The bipartisan DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005 “authorizes the Attorney General to collect DNA samples … from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States,” per the Federal Register.
A Trump administration rule, which became effective in 2020, removed a provision which allowed DHS to exempt some migrants from the law.
>> RELATED: BIDEN DHS RELEASED MIGRANT WHO WOULD KILL LAKEN RILEY OVER ‘LACK OF SPACE’ <<
Taylor, Wynn, and Jones agreed that they had “never” seen “a directive like this be ignored.”
Herridge stated: “Since 2021 under the Biden-Harris administration, Homeland Security’s own data reports more than ten million border encounters.”
Taylor told her: “The internal mood is it’s a dumpster fire.”
Jones added: “It is a questioning of our mission versus what is actually being executed in the field.” He confirmed that the DNA collection protocol helps identify suspects and “gives an investigative lead to a law enforcement agency.”
Taylor indicated that the DNA collection alone “has presumptively solved over one thousand cases.”
In addition to the system helping to reduce crime, Jones stated that it “also cuts down on the time it takes law enforcement to find” suspects.
Herridge noted that according to data released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, “nearly 70% of border encounters did not include DNA collection.”
>> RELATED: RECORD NUMBER OF MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS UNDER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN <<
Furthermore, Grassley’s data showed that an estimated 950,000 violent criminals were left unidentified between 2010 and 2019.
The whistleblowers further confirmed that the figure of nearly one million cited by Grassley’s office is “on the low end.”
“The continued prolonged willful failure to comply with the DNA Fingerprint Act has resulted in the harm that Americans are dead,” said Wynn.
In particular, the whistleblowers pointed to the case of Rachel Morin, 37, a Maryland mother of five who last year was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal migrant from El Salvador. The fatal attack occurred when Morin was out for a jog.
Wynn told Herridge that the DHS’ failure to comply with the 2005 law “may have been a contributing factor” to Morin’s tragic death.
Herridge said that Morin’s eventual killer had “multiple encounters” with border agents. There were therefore “multiple opportunities to take his DNA.”
Jones said: “We understand that we had three bites at the apple with this subject and never took it.”
>> RELATED: MOM OF WOMAN KILLED BY MIGRANT SUING BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN <<
Just over three hours after Herridge posted the bombshell interview to X, she wrote in a subsequent post that CBP issued an “on the record response.”
Per the journalist, the agency spokesperson claimed that “‘DNA samples’ are collected on a ‘majority of applicable (border) encounters.’”
Herridge wrote:
While the spokesperson said “additional resources (are) needed to fully implement the mandate,” they offered no specifics on the rate of compliance with the DNA law.
CBP did not address questions about the Rachel Morin murder and DNA collection from the suspect during border encounters.
Currently an independent journalist, Herridge worked for five years as a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News, until the network controversially dismissed her earlier this year.
She had spent the previous 23 years at FOX News and was one of the cable channel’s original employees.
Actress Patricia Heaton, a Catholic, commented on Herridge’s X post of the video: “No wonder [CBS] let Catherine go – she’s an actual journalist, not a mouthpiece for the dems.”
Heaton is well-known for her lead role in the long-running sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
Heaton previously defended Herridge after the correspondent was let go by CBS’ parent company Paramount Global back in February.
“Wow,” Heaton wrote on X at the time. “[Herridge] is one of the only real reporters left in America and she got laid off?! This is really weird…”
