Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will have access to the personal data of the 79 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide, including addresses and ethnic backgrounds, to track undocumented immigrants.
The information will allow ICE officials to locate foreign nationals across the country, according to an agreement signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement has not been publicly announced.
The extraordinary disclosure of millions of these personal health records to deportation officials is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has repeatedly tested legal limits in its effort to arrest 3,000 people daily.
Lawmakers and some CMS officials have questioned the legality of deportation officials accessing Medicaid enrollee data from certain states.
This measure, first reported by the AP last month, was described by officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as aimed at removing people improperly enrolled in the program.
However, the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE officials intend to do with the health data.
“ICE will use CMS data so it can receive information on the identity and location of foreign nationals identified by ICE,” the agreement states.
These disclosures, even if not enforced in the future, could cause widespread alarm among people seeking emergency medical care for themselves or their children.
Other efforts to combat illegal immigration in schools, churches, courthouses, and other everyday places have made immigrants and even U.S. citizens feel unsafe as they fear being caught in a raid.
Last month, Trump administration officials demanded that federal health agency staff disclose personally identifying information on millions of Medicaid beneficiaries from seven states that allow noncitizens to enroll in their full Medicaid programs.
Twenty states, led by California, sued the Trump administration on July 1 after federal health officials shared confidential Medicaid beneficiary data with the Department of Homeland Security, the agency overseeing immigration enforcement.
“The Trump administration has upended long-standing privacy protections with its decision to illegally share personal and confidential health data with ICE,” stated California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
Image: Opinion
