Oppose SB 116 – Requires DNA Collection
SB 116 is moving fast. Send a message to your state house representatives on it now, and urge them to vote NO. Elected officials represent you and it is important they hear from you.
Today, SB 116 passed the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee along party lines. Because it already passed the Senate before crossover day, this bill is now one step closer to a full House vote.
SB 116 would require DNA collection from people in detention who are charged with a misdemeanor or felony and are subject to an immigration detainer. That means Georgia could expand invasive DNA collection far beyond serious convictions and use immigration status as the trigger for deeper state surveillance.
This is dangerous.
DNA is not like a fingerprint. It is deeply personal, invasive, and powerful. It can expose intensely private information and create long-term surveillance risks not only for the individual being targeted, but for their family members as well. At a time of all-time-high tech surveillance, Georgia should not be building new systems that can be coupled with ICE or federal agencies and used to widen the net of criminalization.
In Georgia, we already know what happens when immigration enforcement is layered onto local policing. Our state has a long deportation pipeline fueled by criminalized traffic stops, jail entanglement, and 287(g) programs. SB 116 would push that pipeline even further by making a person’s contact with the local criminal legal system a gateway to permanent biometric collection and monitoring.
This bill is not about public safety. It is about expanding government power over immigrant communities, deepening fear, and normalizing the collection of highly sensitive biological data from people who have not been convicted of a crime.
We cannot let this move quietly and much less without our outreach to state house representatives.
Please take one minute right now to send a message to your House member and urge them to vote NO on SB 116 before it reaches the floor:
Take Action: Send a Letter to your Representative (click)
Tell your Representative:
- Georgia should not expand DNA collection based on immigration detainers.
- DNA collection is highly intrusive and can impact entire families.
- SB 116 would deepen the state’s deportation pipeline and expand tech surveillance of immigrant communities.
- Lawmakers must reject this attack on privacy, dignity, and democracy.
Our communities deserve safety without surveillance. They deserve dignity without targeting. And they deserve a democracy that does not treat immigrant families as data to be collected and controlled.