The Government Efficiency Department (DOGE), temporarily led by Elon Musk, has been granted access to a U.S. Justice Department system containing sensitive information about immigrants, according to The Washington Post.
A team of about half a dozen DOGE advisors will have access to the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR) Courts and Appeals System (ECAS), managed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which stores data on immigrants who have interacted with the U.S. immigration system, according to documents obtained by the newspaper.
The ECAS contains information such as names, addresses, testimonies before immigration courts, and interactions with law enforcement, among other details of both documented and undocumented immigrants.
What information will DOGE now have access to?
The ECAS contains information such as names, addresses, testimonies before immigration courts, and interactions with law enforcement, among other details of both documented and undocumented immigrants.
This is not the first time the controversial DOGE has sought sensitive immigrant data. Last week, it requested, along with the Department of Homeland Security, sensitive information from U.S. public health system databases to help immigration authorities locate undocumented individuals.
Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE members from accessing Americans’ personal information in Social Security Administration systems.
The court order is related to granting ten DOGE-affiliated individuals unrestricted access to records of millions of Americans.
The information in those records includes Social Security numbers, personal medical and mental health history, tax and driver’s license information, bank account details, income history, home and work addresses, birth and marriage records, and immigration and/or naturalization records, among others.
