WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is elevating three Customs and Border Protection whistleblowers who sounded the alarm more than seven years ago about their agency not collecting fingerprints from detainees, potentially letting thousands of criminals loose into the US.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that CBP agents Fred Wynn, Mike Taylor and Mark Jones will now hold supervisory roles and receive seven years of backpay and retirement benefits after paying an “unjust price” for flagging that collection practices had run afoul of federal law since 2009.
“These men had the courage and patriotism to speak up against the Biden Administration’s deliberate efforts to destroy our national security. They paid an unjust price for doing so — betrayed by an administration that protected lawbreakers and punished law enforcement,” Noem said.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring what is right and true and getting these patriots back to doing the work they love.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) spearheaded the effort to reinstate the trio of “brave” whistleblowers for noting in February 2018 that DHS wasn’t abiding by the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005.
“Today is a victory for Fred Wynn, Mike Taylor, Mark Jones and the rule of law. At long last, these patriotic men will be made whole again,” Grassley said.
“I’m very grateful to the leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, who worked with me to bring these whistleblowers back to their rightful roles,” he added.
“Once again, the Trump administration has shown its respect for people that blow the whistle on wrongdoing.”
During the first Trump administration, US Office of Special Counsel Henry Kerner informed the president and Congress in August 2019 that the “agency’s noncompliance with the law has allowed subjects subsequently accused of violent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault, to elude detection even when detained multiple times by CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
A source familiar with the effects of that dereliction of duty has told The Post: “I believe that if you could get the totality for that period of time [since 2009] … of how many Americans ended up being killed as a result, I think it probably exceeds the number of Americans who died on 9/11.”
The noncompliance began with a decision by Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder to “allow exceptions to DNA sample collection from criminal arrestees” in 2010.
Despite being enacted in 2005, the DNA Fingerprint Act was not interpreted as a federal rule until late 2008 and went into effect the following year.
Under former President Joe Biden, CBP scooped up fewer than 40% of DNA samples from illegal immigrants in 2023 — the year that border crossings hit an all-time high — forcing the Democrat to hastily reverse course during an election year.
All three whistleblowers suffered professional and financial consequences for their actions the same year — including losing performance awards and being taken off a team targeting MS-13 gang members — with Taylor having his retirement coverage and future pension payments stripped.
Each also had their guns and badges taken “without cause,” the source familiar with the fiasco said.
All three had previously been members of CBP’s now-defunct Weapons of Mass Destruction Division between 2016 and 2018, which had been picked to institute a pilot program to implement the DNA Fingerprint Act.
Wynn has now retired but Jones and Taylor will have their badges and firearms returned.
Grassley was also instrumental in elevating and helping to reinstate IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler for alerting Congress to a Justice Department cover-up of Hunter Biden’s tax felonies.
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