Forensic Investigation in Policing Immigrants: Applications, Challenges, and Recommendations

Forensic investigation is used in policing immigrants for various investigative tasks, such as forensic psychological evaluations in immigration courts, forensic medical evaluation on immigration relief, forensic genetics and anthropology in identifying decedent migrants, and document examination on immigration documents. Forensic applications in policing immigrants have focused primarily on document examination and individual identification. Although the other forensic methods have been relatively underreported, their significance in serving immigrant policing is evident. Challenges in developing forensic investigation for policing immigrants involve collaboration issues, resource limitations, and technical complications. In order to improve policing immigrants, the above challenges need to be overcome to remove the barriers between forensic investigation and immigrant policing. The authors gathered information from journals, government sources, and nongovernment organizations to identify current and past practices in North America and Europe related to the background of forensic applications in immigrant policing. In this article, the status quo of applications along with case examples are presented; the current challenges are pointed out and the root cause analysis of problems in the challenges is conducted; recommendations for future forensic application, development, and advancement in policing immigrants are discussed.