Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE

WASHINGTON AP Immigration and Customs Enforcement representatives will be given access to the personal facts of the nation s million Medicaid enrollees including home addresses and ethnicities to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press The information will give ICE leaders the ability to find the location of aliens across the country says the agreement signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Safeguard The agreement has not been communicated publicly The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal healthcare figures to deportation authorities is the latest escalation in the Trump administration s immigration crackdown which has repeatedly tested legal boundaries in its effort to arrest people daily Lawmakers and a few CMS agents have challenged the legality of deportation authorities access to specific states Medicaid enrollee input It s a move first revealed by the AP last month that Healthcare and Human Services personnel declared was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the campaign improperly But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE representatives intend to do with the fitness figures ICE will use the CMS figures to allow ICE to receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE the agreement says Such an action could ripple widely Such disclosures even if not acted upon could cause widespread alarm among people seeking emergency curative help for themselves or their children Other efforts to crack down on illegal immigration have made schools churches courthouses and other everyday places feel perilous to immigrants and even U S citizens who fear getting caught up in a raid HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon would not respond to the latest agreement It is unclear though whether Homeland Assurance has yet accessed the information The department s assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin disclosed in an emailed declaration that the two agencies are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans The database will reveal to ICE authorities the names addresses birth dates ethnic and racial information as well as Social Prevention numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid The state and federally funded effort provides fitness care coverage campaign for the poorest of people including millions of children The agreement does not allow ICE authorities to download the details Instead they will be allowed to access it for a limited period from a m to p m Monday through Friday until Sept They are trying to turn us into immigration agents commented a CMS official did not have permission to speak to the media and insisted on anonymity Immigrants who are not living in the U S legally as well as specific lawfully present immigrants are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid undertaking that provides nearly-free coverage for physical condition services Medicaid is a jointly funded effort between states and the federal cabinet But federal law requires all states to offer crisis Medicaid a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in urgency rooms to anyone including non-U S citizens Urgency Medicaid is often used by immigrants including those who are lawfully present and those who are not Multiple people sign up for exigency Medicaid in their the majority desperate moments reported Hannah Katch a previous adviser at CMS during the Biden administration It s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid enrollees in this way Katch declared She revealed the personally identifiable information of enrollees has not been historically shared outside of the agency unless for law enforcement purposes to investigate waste fraud or abuse of the project Trump association has pursued information aggressively Trump authorities last month demanded that the federal soundness agency s staffers release personally identifiable information on millions of Medicaid enrollees from seven states that permit non-U S citizens to enroll in their full Medicaid programs The states launched these programs during the Biden administration and revealed they would not bill the federal administration to cover the strength care costs of those immigrants All the states California New York Washington Oregon Illinois Minnesota and Colorado have Democratic governors That details sharing with DHS bureaucrats prompted widespread backlash from lawmakers and governors Twenty states have since sued over the move alleging it violated federal wellbeing privacy laws CMS executives previously fought and failed to stop the facts sharing that is now at the center of the lawsuits On Monday CMS leaders were once again debating whether they should provide DHS access citing concerns about the ongoing litigation In an email chain obtained by the AP called Hold DHS Access URGENT CMS chief legal officer Rujul H Desai reported they should first ask the Department of Justice to appeal to the White House directly for a pause on the information sharing In a response the next day HHS lawyer Lena Amanti Yueh announced that the Justice Department was peaceful with CMS proceeding with providing DHS access Dozens of members of Congress including Democratic Sen Adam Schiff of California sent letters last month to DHS and HHS executives demanding that the information-sharing stop The massive transfer of the personal input of millions of Medicaid recipients should alarm every American This massive violation of our privacy laws must be halted right now Schiff declared in response to AP s description of the new expanded agreement It will harm families across the nation and only cause more citizens to forego lifesaving access to wellness care The new agreement makes clear that DHS will use the statistics to identify for deportation purposes people who in the country illegally But HHS executives have repeatedly maintained that it would be used primarily as a cost-saving measure to investigate whether non-U S citizens were improperly accessing Medicaid benefits HHS acted entirely within its legal authority and in full compliance with all applicable laws to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them Nixon disclosed in a message responding to the lawsuits last month