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Family separation—whether caused by armed conflict, repressive regimes, disasters, or immigration policies—traumatizes children and parents and can have long-term impacts on physical and mental health ([ 1 ][1]). It is therefore imperative to develop and deploy policies and tools to support prompt and safe family reunifications and address wrongful government-imposed separations. Given the particular legal, psychological, and medical vulnerabilities of separated migrant families, we propose here a replicable, scalable, and sustainable framework to collect and manage sensitive DNA data to support the reunification of families in a manner that is secure, ethical, and humane, responding to families' needs while minimizing potential risks of government misuse of sensitive data ([ 2 ][2]). Whether or not families ultimately reunite should be primarily the choice of each family with guidance from supporting agencies, taking into account the child's best interests and family members' safety ([ 1 ][1]). But lack of tools to connect families, an inability to verify genetic relationships when applicable, and fears of the sensitivity of DNA data should not be barriers.

We define migrant family reunification as a comprehensive approach in which separated family members are identified, reconnected, and provided with legal counsel and psychosocial support. Family separations are an ongoing reality in many global regions and are likely to increase. Scattering of family members often occurs with migration. The United States has seen a surge in migrant families and unaccompanied youth, with more than 70,000 family units and 45,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the border between October 2020 and March 2021. Some family units could face separations; most of the migrant youth are already separated from their families. This follows the separations caused by the Trump administration's “Zero Tolerance” policy to prosecute all undocumented border crossers, officially implemented in April 2018 and prefaced by routine separations starting in 2017 ([ 3 ][3]). President Biden has since issued an executive order to reunify previously separated migrant families, but the potential role of DNA remains unclear.

![Figure][4]</img>

A DNA-led database strategy for migrant family reunifications
The graphic delineates the parallel paths for DNA data collection for reunification of families separated as a result of the 2018 US Zero Tolerance policy. NGO, nongovernmental organization; STRs, short tandem repeats.

GRAPHIC: N. CARY/ SCIENCE

Given the substantial harms of family separation, it is critical to ensure the timely and proper use of a DNA database approach, harnessing DNA technology's powerful ability to link genetic families. Most DNA identification applications, including the 2018 efforts in the United States to reunify separated migrant families, are based on 1:1 DNA test comparison, which tests the hypothesis of a relationship, similar to a paternity test. So, in the 2018 attempts, when the DNA of separated Child A was taken, it was sent to a relationship-testing DNA laboratory and held until someone came along claiming a relationship to Child A, in which case a purported parent could provide DNA for the test. By contrast, a database strategy can store DNA of many children and many adults, enabling 1:many searches of each new adult or child to the many children or adults in the database, testing hypotheses of kinship among many possibilities.

We recognize that no technology—including DNA analysis—can reunify all families; however, any inherent limitations are not adequate justification for avoiding the application of scientific tools capable of facilitating the prompt reunification of migrant children and parents.

Science-led efforts have resulted in technology, infrastructure, and training materials necessary to launch a DNA-based initiative for reconnecting living displaced and/or missing persons. For example, Argentina's Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in partnership with geneticists, pioneered the use of DNA to locate children who disappeared during Argentina's 1976–1983 military dictatorship ([ 4 ][5]). Geneticists also have assisted the Salvadorian agency Pro-Búsqueda de los Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos to use DNA analysis to locate 384 of the children who disappeared during El Salvador's civil war (1980–1992) and were illegally adopted in the United States, Europe, and Central America ([ 5 ][6]). Use of DNA has helped families address “ambiguous loss,” the intense trauma when the whereabouts and condition of a missing loved one are unknown ([ 6 ][7]). It has also allowed families to secure rights to justice, truth, and reparations ([ 7 ][8]).

Mass victim identification efforts have led to the evolution of approaches for secure management of large DNA datasets while also bringing to light some pitfalls. For example, in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, forensic scientists harnessed DNA data and database tools, managing and securing sensitive data to identify victims and return their remains to family members for burial ([ 8 ][9]). The advent of a database approach allowed for ongoing identifications years after the attack. The 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia ([ 9 ][10]) and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina ([ 10 ][11]) demonstrated challenges of DNA data management among multiple nations and jurisdictions, which then fueled improvements in missing-persons communication strategies ([ 11 ][12]). After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, DNA identification tools were more successful for foreign visitors than Haitians, indicating a need for equitable access to DNA technologies and better transnational coordination ([ 11 ][12]).

Entities already exist that can manage large-scale approaches to identifying deceased victims of conflict or forced disappearances. For example, the International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP), an intergovernmental entity that works to locate missing persons, pioneered the use of a DNA-led approach to identify thousands of missing persons in the aftermath of the 1990s' wars in the Balkans ([ 12 ][13]). By 2020, the ICMP database held DNA data from 101,189 family references and had issued DNA match reports on 20,034 deceased individuals, assisting more than 40 countries to locate missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, migration, and disasters. As a treaty-based intergovernmental organization that operates independent of any nation member, ICMP benefits from privileges and immunities that guarantee legal protections of data, allowing it to securely hold sensitive personal data—including DNA data—without the risk of seizure by government actors or unauthorized distribution. ICMP is mandated to work in countries only by invitation of the government. ICMP and other similar organizations, such as the Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala, offer technical experience and exemplary processes for using DNA to reunify families who have endured traumatic situations.

The needed DNA technology is available. The most prevalent forensic DNA identification method relies on detection of short tandem repeats (STRs), regions of chromosomes composed of repeated sequences that differ in size between individuals. Because children inherit one copy of each autosomal STR region from each parent, STR analysis is an excellent measure of first-degree genetic relationships but does not generate useful information beyond identity and kinship ([ 13 ][14]). The global commonality of STRs enables long-term databases for future identifications. Additionally, new tools, such as rapid DNA technologies, have improved the ability to expedite and automate DNA data generation ([ 14 ][15], [ 15 ][16]).

Prior DNA-based efforts in humanitarian and post-conflict identifications of deceased missing persons have been successful; however, these tools have yet to be adapted globally for identification and reconnection of live missing and displaced persons. We propose an infrastructure to assist migrant family reunifications. Doing so will require procedural adaptation o

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