Orin Kerr, a law professor at Stanford University, says whether the arrest is lawful is the most pressing question at hand, when it comes to the DNA taken from ICE protesters.

“What you worry about is an officer making a decision in the field that a person committed a crime when they might not have. Maybe they were doing something protected under the First Amendment,” Kerr says. “The officer says, ‘I think you crossed the line, I’m going to arrest you.’ It turns out the officer was wrong, but the DNA test has been conducted, and the information has been entered into the database. What then?”

Kerr says it’s not immediately clear what the legal remedy might be for such a violation, though there are avenues to request the federal government expunge a DNA record.