Under a new data-sharing agreement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be granted access to the personal information of all 79 million Medicaid enrollees in the U.S., including their home addresses and ethnicities. The agreement, signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Homeland Security, aims to help ICE locate undocumented immigrants nationwide.
The deal has not been publicly announced, but a copy obtained by the Associated Press reveals its scope. According to the document, ICE will use the data to “receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE.” The move represents a major escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, which seeks to deport 3,000 individuals per day.
Critics say the disclosure of sensitive health data raises serious legal and ethical concerns. Lawmakers and some CMS officials have already questioned ICE’s access to Medicaid records in certain states. Federal health officials previously claimed the purpose was to identify ineligible recipients. But the new agreement explicitly outlines deportation-focused intentions.
The policy comes just days after ICE detained Pasadena resident Rosalina Luna Vargas in front of her children, sparking a community vigil in California. The administration has also recently completed deportations to third countries in Africa and expanded workplace raids.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon declined to comment on the latest agreement, while DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended the effort as a way to ensure benefits go only to “law-abiding Americans.”
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