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Border Patrol units in San Diego and El Centro rank high on the list of entities that collected the most DNA samples from detainees last year.

DNA’s TJ terror

Border Patrol units in San Diego and El Centro rank high on the list of entities that collected the most DNA samples from detainees last year, with San Diego gathering 44,757 and El Centro bagging 29,451, according to a May 24 report to two Congressional committee chairs from Rebecca Gambler, Director, Homeland Security and Justice in the Government Accountability Office. Del Rio, Texas tops the list with 151,843, while the lowest was the Havre, Montana office near the border with Canada, with only 24.

Rebecca Gambler: ample samples, but GOP wants more.

But House Republicans remain unassuaged. “You asked us to examine [Customs and Border Patrol’s] implementation of the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005,” says Gambler’s letter to Homeland Security committee chair Mark E. Green and Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee chair Clay Higgins. Though Gambler’s report notes that the Border Patrol “has collected nearly 1 million DNA samples from individuals in its custody” since the program began in 2020, the findings remain dispiriting to those calling for even more genetic surveillance of undocumented border crossers apprehended by the patrol.

From the report: “Border Patrol officials from both southwest border sectors we spoke to noted ongoing issues with shortages of DNA collection kits, resulting in an insufficient number of kits to collect DNA from all individuals covered by the DNA collection regulation. Border Patrol officials we spoke with in the Del Rio and Rio Grande Valley sectors added that these kit supply shortages are most acute during peak periods for border crossings.”

Improvement is promised, per the letter. “According to FBI officials, CBP’s demand for DNA collection kits has at times led to limitations in the supply of kits available. To address this issue, FBI officials stated that they received approximately $8 million in additional funding in fiscal year 2023 to increase the supply of collection kits and processing capacity. The agency has also requested additional annual funding to increase capacity for supplying and processing DNA samples beginning in fiscal year 2024, according to FBI officials.

FBI officials anticipate that the additional funding in fiscal year 2023, as well as the requested funding beginning in fiscal year 2024, would enable them to provide enough DNA sample collection kits to meet CBP’s demand for kits.” But despite increased taxpayer funding, the auditors questioned why the genetic testing rate was so low, standing at 37 percent in 2022. “While some of the individuals encountered by [Custom and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations] and Border Patrol were not covered by the regulation, the agencies cannot readily determine the extent to which these non-collections were appropriate and valid because they do not systematically record data on the reasons for the non-collections.”

A recommendation by Gambler that more monitoring is needed was accepted by Homeland Security officials. Meanwhile, House members Higgins and Green have gone after the Biden administration for lack of vigilance against Middle East terrorists trying to sneak across the Tijuana border. “According to multiple sources from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Afghan national was apprehended near San Diego, California, along with a group of aliens who had crossed the border illegally,” the pair wrote in a May 23 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Reports indicate that a fingerprint scan revealed he was a match to someone on the Terrorist Screening Database, triggering an investigation by the FBI. Additionally, a Pakistani national on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist was arrested by Border Patrol agents in southeastern Arizona, a day after the expiration of Title 42, according to reports.”

Pink sheet Pat

The fortune of Big Pharma billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of both the Los Angeles Times and its San Diego little sister, the Union-Tribune, is down to $6.1 billion on paper, according to the Forbes real-time net worth report.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: print media isn’t his only risky business.

Though that may be enough for Soon-Shiong to keep subsidizing the advertising-starved papers, another problem with one of the entrepreneur physician’s once-vaunted biotech companies has cropped up, leading to concerns that, despite denials, he won’t be able to deliver a print version of the U-T once his LA printing plant shutters in mid-2024. “NantHealth on Tuesday disclosed that its shares would be delisted from the market and that its common stock will instead be quoted on the [Over the Counter] Pink exchange,” the Triangle Business Journal of upstate New York reported May 24.

“This transition follows NantHealth in October receiving a deficiency letter from Nasdaq officials that the company was not in compliance with a rule requiring listed companies to have a minimum $15 million market value for publicly held shares. The company had 180 days to regain compliance, a deadline that hit earlier this month. Unable to regain compliance, NantHealth on May 11 filed a request for a hearing before a Nasdaq panel. The hearing was set to take place June 8, but more than a week after NantHealth filed its request, the company withdrew it. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company ‘determined that it is no longer in its best interest to pursue continued listing of its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.’”

Explains the website Investopedia.com: “Playing in Pink Sheets stocks can be fun and rewarding, but also highly risky. These stocks tend to be of very small and financially questionable companies, feature wide bid-ask spreads with low liquidity, and are less regulated than large exchanges. Investors should exercise caution and follow their own due diligence before jumping into trading the Pink Sheets.”

...California Senate Democratic pro Tem Toni Atkins picked up $75,000 for her so-called ballot measure committee from the California Real Estate PAC on May 24. The LA law and lobbying firm of Nossaman, LLP gave $5500 to the Atkins for Lt. Governor 2026 committee on May 30. State disclosure filings show that Nossaman received $302,178 during the first quarter of this year from a bevy of California state house lobbying clients, including Florida’s Bureau Veritas Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiary Bureau Veritas National Elevator Inspection Services, Inc., San Diego-based California American Water, and the Olivenhain Municipal Water District.

— Matt Potter

(@sdmattpotter)

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