Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE
By KIMBERLY KINDY and AMANDA SEITZ WASHINGTON AP Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders will be given access to the personal evidence 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 officers 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 Guard The agreement has not been informed publicly The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal wellbeing figures to deportation personnel 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 functionaries access to specific states Medicaid enrollee records It s a move first informed by the AP last month that Physical condition and Human Services functionaries disclosed was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the plan improperly But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE personnel intend to do with the fitness content ICE will use the CMS facts to allow ICE to receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE the agreement says People shout at federal immigration agents during a raid in the agriculture area of Camarillo Calif July AP Photo Michael Owen Baker Special demands lecturer Deja Nebula sets up an art installation displaying names and faces of people who have been detained deported or sent to offshore camps during ICE raids in Southern California at Olvera Street Plaza in Los Angeles on Thursday July AP Photo Damian Dovarganes A Margin Patrol agent looks on as a family from Colombia is detained and escorted to a bus by federal agents following an appearance at immigration court Monday July in San Antonio AP Photo Eric Gay Show Caption of People shout at federal immigration agents during a raid in the agriculture area of Camarillo Calif July AP Photo Michael Owen Baker Expand Such an action could ripple widely Such disclosures even if not acted upon could cause widespread alarm among people seeking crisis clinical 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 Protection has yet accessed the information The department s assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin revealed in an emailed report 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 personnel the names addresses birth dates ethnic and racial information as well as Social Shield numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid The state and federally funded scheme provides soundness care coverage effort for the poorest of people including millions of children The agreement does not allow ICE authorities to download the material Instead they will be allowed to access it for a limited period from a m to p m Monday through Friday until Sept Related Articles Nationwide protests planned against Trump s immigration crackdown and vitality care cuts EPA signals opposition to Colorado s plan to close coal power plants Trump tries to blame others as tensions rise around handling of Epstein occurrence Justice Department fires Maurene Comey prosecutor on Epstein event and daughter of ex-FBI director Federal lawsuit seeks to stop ICE agents from arresting people at immigration courts 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 various lawfully present immigrants are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid activity that provides nearly-free coverage for wellness services Medicaid is a jointly funded undertaking between states and the federal leadership But federal law requires all states to offer urgency Medicaid a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone including non-U S citizens Emergency Medicaid is often used by immigrants including those who are lawfully present and those who are not A large number of people sign up for exigency Medicaid in their the bulk desperate moments announced 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 mentioned She commented 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 operation Trump band has pursued information aggressively Trump agents last month demanded that the federal wellness 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 noted they would not bill the federal governing body to cover the wellbeing care costs of those immigrants All the states California New York Washington Oregon Illinois Minnesota and Colorado have Democratic governors That material sharing with DHS representatives prompted widespread backlash from lawmakers and governors Twenty states have since sued over the move alleging it violated federal wellbeing privacy laws CMS administrators previously fought and failed to stop the details sharing that is now at the center of the lawsuits On Monday CMS personnel 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 commented 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 noted that the Justice Department was at ease 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 instantly 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 medical care The new agreement makes clear that DHS will use the material to identify for deportation purposes people who in the country illegally But HHS personnel 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 revealed in a declaration responding to the lawsuits last month
