BJA's Missing and Unidentified Remains Program Shrinks to Four Awards — and Now Requires an Immigration Certification to Identify the Dead
October 22, 2026 · 7 min read
Granted Research Team · Editorial policy
The Bureau of Justice Assistance released its FY2026 Missing and Unidentified Human Remains (MUHR) Program solicitation on October 19, 2026. It is one of the few federal funding streams built specifically to identify the dead: to report, transport, process, identify and repatriate missing persons and unidentified human remains, including migrants who die crossing the southern border.
It is also smaller than it has ever been, and it now carries the same immigration-enforcement conditions DOJ has added across its FY2026 portfolio.
The key numbers:
- Funding: up to $3,079,954
- Awards: about 4, each up to $1,000,000
- Period: 36 months, starting January 1, 2027
- Match: none
- SAM.gov: begin registration or renewal by October 30, and no later than November 10, 2026
- Step 1 (Grants.gov SF-424): December 2, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET
- Step 2 (full application in JustGrants): December 9, 2026, 8:59 p.m. ET
A small program getting smaller
MUHR launched in fiscal 2022. By OMB's tally, it had made 19 awards totaling $13,124,479 through the FY2025 cycle. Those awards produced 58 identifications and 39 repatriations.
Those results are modest in absolute terms, but they are real, and they come from a field that runs on very little federal money. Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates, though dated, hold that medical examiners and coroners receive about 4,400 unidentified bodies in an average year and that about 1,000 remain unidentified after a year. Some estimates put the national backlog of unidentified remains at up to 40,000.
The FY2025 solicitation offered $5,472,691 and tiered its ceilings: up to $1 million for statewide agencies, up to $500,000 for counties and local governments, and up to $1 million for a single applicant serving small, rural and tribal entities nationally. FY2026 offers $3.08 million, about 44 percent less, and lists a flat ceiling of up to $1 million for roughly four awards.
If BJA funds several awards at or near the ceiling, there may be room for only three or four winners nationwide. Every applicant should assume one of two outcomes: a top-quartile score, or no award.
Who is eligible
Eligibility is broad on paper and narrow in practice:
- Governments: states, counties, cities and townships, special districts, and other general-purpose units of local government.
- Public universities, but only those with forensic anthropology laboratories, direct CODIS access, medical examiner offices or toxicology labs. The NOFO gives the example of a state university anthropology department with a forensic track and labs.
- Nonprofits (501(c)(3) or not), but only those with working collaborative agreements with state or county forensic offices for entering data into CODIS, NamUs or both.
- "Other" entities: medical examiner offices, and accredited, publicly funded CODIS laboratories, toxicology laboratories and crime laboratories.
Database access is a threshold requirement. Entering cases into NamUs, NCIC and, where applicable, ViCAP is a mandatory deliverable, and the award does not grant access. An applicant without law-enforcement-level or medical-examiner-level access must either obtain it or partner with an agency that already has it. That partner's MOU or letter of intent must come with the application. If you are a nonprofit or university relying on a coroner's office for NCIC entry, get that letter signed in November, not December.
Applicants may submit more than one application if each proposes a different project. Multi-agency projects must name one lead applicant, with the others as subrecipients.
The two certifications that pull in opposite directions
This year's MUHR solicitation contains two requirements that together say a lot about how DOJ grants work in FY2026.
The 1373 certification. Every state or local government applicant must submit a certification, signed by its chief executive officer or senior official on the template in Appendix A, that it complies with 8 U.S.C. §§ 1373 and 1644. Those statutes bar restricting the exchange of citizenship and immigration status information with DHS. The NOFO is explicit: applicants who are required to submit it and fail to do so will be denied. Awards will also carry a § 1373 compliance condition. Tribal governments and public universities are exempt from the certification.
On top of that, OJP lists agency funding priorities that include supporting immigration law enforcement operations, honoring DHS detainer-notice requests and granting DHS agents access to correctional facilities. It offers priority consideration to applicants that participate in, or commit to, a 287(g) partnership or a Homeland Security Task Force, documented by a letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office's Lead HSTF Attorney. Any activity that "impedes or hinders" federal immigration enforcement is out of scope at every tier.
The family reference sample firewall. Before drawing funds, every recipient must also certify that biological family DNA reference samples, whether from U.S. citizens or foreign nationals, that are uploaded to CODIS under the program may be used only to identify missing persons and unidentified remains and may not be disclosed to federal or state law enforcement for law enforcement purposes. The certification covers every subrecipient. A separate certification governs any use of forensic genetic genealogy.
These provisions can coexist, but they create a real tension for the jurisdictions that need MUHR most. Identifying a migrant who died in the Arizona desert or on a South Texas ranch often depends on a relative, sometimes undocumented and sometimes abroad, agreeing to give a cheek swab. The firewall exists to make that request credible. A county that has also signed a 287(g) agreement for priority points will have to explain to consulates, humanitarian partners and families why the swab is safe. The NOFO's firewall language gives you the words. Use them in your community engagement plan and your partner letters.
For jurisdictions with sanctuary-type policies, the math is simpler. If your government cannot sign the § 1373 certification as written, the application will be denied. A public university forensic anthropology lab or a qualifying nonprofit, both exempt from the certification, may be the viable lead applicant, with the medical examiner's office as a subrecipient. Get legal advice before structuring around the condition, because the certification also binds subrecipients' compliance in any program or activity funded by the award.
How applications are scored
The proposal narrative is limited to 10 double-spaced pages. The weights:
| Section | Weight |
|---|---|
| Description of the Need | 5% |
| Project Goals and Objectives | 15% |
| Project Design and Implementation | 35% |
| Capabilities and Competencies | 30% |
| Budget | 15% |
Need counts for only 5 percent, so a moving narrative about unidentified decedents earns almost nothing. Design and capability together count for 65 percent. Reviewers want to know whether you can actually run cases through the pipeline in 36 months, and whether you have done it before.
The need section does carry one hard requirement: separate estimates of missing person and unidentified remains cases in your internal records management system, NamUs and NCIC, matching the MUHR Program Inventory Question Set. Pull those numbers now. Reconciling NamUs against NCIC often reveals that cases exist in one system and not the other, and that discrepancy is itself a strong, fundable problem statement.
What the money can and cannot buy
Allowable costs include exhumation as authorized by law; personnel salary, overtime and benefits; transportation of remains; laboratory supplies; DNA processing; forensic genetic genealogy (with the certification); multimodal forensic and DNA typing equipment; computer equipment; and limited training.
Unallowable: construction, funeral and burial costs after repatriation, expert witness fees, vehicle purchase or lease, and recipient direct administrative costs above 3 percent. The vehicle ban matters for rural and border offices whose biggest bottleneck is moving remains. Budget for contracted transport instead.
Strategy for a four-award competition
- Lead with a backlog you can close. Name a defined cohort — for example, "the 212 unidentified remains in our custody recovered between 2012 and 2020, of which 140 lack a CODIS profile," and commit to measurable throughput: profiles uploaded, NamUs records created or updated, identifications and repatriations. The program's own track record (58 identifications from 19 awards) sets the bar. Beating it is persuasive.
- Build the multidisciplinary team on paper. Goal 1 requires partnerships across medicolegal, law enforcement, forensic, prosecutorial and advocacy communities. Name each partner and its role, and attach letters.
- Regional consortia beat single offices. With only about four awards, a statewide medical examiner system or a multi-county consortium that pools unidentified cases will read as better value than a single county office.
- Show you can move fast. Awards start January 1, 2027. Have lab contracts, genealogy vendors and data-entry staff ready to start in the first quarter.
- Decide on priority points deliberately. The 287(g)/HSTF priority is optional. Weigh the scoring gain against the community trust your identification work depends on, and do not claim a commitment you cannot document.
Related reading
For other FY2026 DOJ solicitations with the same certification architecture, see our analysis of BJA's Integrity in American Elections program, due December 1.
If you are building a MUHR application on a six-week clock, Granted can help you turn your NamUs and NCIC inventory into a scored need statement, a 10-page narrative and a budget that stays inside the 3 percent administrative cap.