Altermundos by Cathryn Josefina Merla-Watson

Towards the end of her 2014 monograph, gender, performance, and ethnic studies scholar Rachel Lee identifies several changes in the landscape of racial thinking during our “(epi-) genomic age.” While epidermal notions of race persist, “microscopically coded (genomic) markers” penetrate deeper to allow for multiscalar means of human differentiation under new regimes of science. In the 21 st century, race runs more than skin deep.

Under the rule of the Department of Justice, the use of biometrics marks racialized bodies as the scene of the crime from which government agencies can lawfully harvest genetic material. Genetic information is collected and fed into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database touted as “a tool for linking violent crimes” whenever “biological evidence is recovered from the crime scene.” When applied to border subjects, these biometrics shore up containment measures and mark undocumented migrants as potential repeat offenders, a foreclosing of their futures that serves the ends of biopolitical control. Department of Justice proposed a rule titled “DNA-Sample Collection From Immigration Detainees.” The rule would remove one Obama-era exception in the Code of Federal Regulations to the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005: an exception that dismisses DNA collection as a requirement if institutional funds are limited.

Salvador Herrera // On October 22 nd, 2019, the U.S.

Altermundos by Cathryn Josefina Merla-Watson