Chicago, Illinois - 71-year-old Air Force veteran Dana Briggs is suing the Trump administration after being arrested by Customs and Border Protection and forced to provide his DNA.

For more than a decade, Briggs has regularly protested against the inhumane treatment of migrants by the Department of Homeland Security, CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last year, however, he was slammed onto the ground and arrested by agents while standing outside an ICE detention center in Chicago. Having received treatment at a hospital while cuffed to a bed, he was processed at a federal facility, fingerprinted, and read his rights.

It was at this point that Briggs was confronted with something he could barely believe was happening: agents ordered him to provide a DNA sample, which was then kept by the authorities even after he was released.

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"If you refuse to give a swab, you're committing another crime," Briggs told the New York Times. "I was unaware of that, and I suspect that 99.9% of us in this country are unaware of that."

Briggs has now filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois, arguing that the incident violated not only his right to protest and the First Amendment, but also constituted a "warrantless, unreasonable" intrusion into his body.

"The government's chilling message is clear," the suit reads. "If you protest government policies, we will arrest you, file away your DNA and monitor you – and potentially your biological relatives – going forward."

A CBP directive last year ordered its officers to collect DNA samples from anyone they arrest. If a person refuses, they may be referred for prosecution.

"I just find this to be abhorrent," Briggs said. "If we don't have a right to our own selves, everything is going to break down."