Washington – immigration and customs officials will receive access to personal data of 79 million recorded in the Medicaid country, including home and ethnic addresses, to follow immigrants who may not live legally in the United States, in accordance with the agreement obtained by the Associated Press.
Information gives ICE officials the opportunity to find a “location of aliens” throughout the country, it says that the contract signed on Monday between the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Internal Security Department. The contract was not publicly announced.
The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal health data to deportation officials is the latest escalation of the immigration repression of the Trump administration, which repeatedly tested legal boundaries to arrest 3,000 people every day.
»Read more: The Trump administration provides personal data of immigrants registered in Medicaid to deportation officials
Legislators and some CMS officials questioned the legality of deportation officials to the data of some states “Medicaid Rejerlee Data. This is a movement for the first time reported by AP last month, which, according to health officials for health and human services, was aimed at eradicating the people saved to the program.
But the latest data sharing agreement explains what ICE officials intend to do with health data.
“Ice will operate CMS data to enable ICE to receive identity and location information on ICE,” says the contract.
»Read more: Five charts that show the impact of Trump’s immigration policy in PA. And NJ
Such action could waves widely
Such disclosures, even if they do not work, can cause a common alarm among people looking for paramedics for themselves or their children. Other efforts to part of illegal immigration meant that schools, churches, courts and other daily places felt dangerous for immigrants and even US citizens who are afraid that they were caught during the raid.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon would not respond to the latest contract. It is not clear, however, whether internal security has yet obtained information. Assistant to the secretary of the department, Tricia McLaughlin, said in an e-mail that both agencies “study the initiative to ensure that illegal aliens do not receive medicaid benefits that are intended for Americans who comply with law.”
The database will reveal names to ICE officials, addresses, dates of birth, ethnic and racial information, as well as social insurance numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid. The program financed by the state and federally provides a health care program for the poorest people, including millions of children.
The contract does not allow ICE officials to download data. Instead, they will be able to access it for a limited period from 9am to 5 in the afternoon, from Monday to Friday to September 9.
“They try to transform us into immigration agents,” said CMS official did not have permission to talk to the media and insisted on anonymity.
Immigrants who do not live in the US in accordance with the law, as well as some legally present immigrants, cannot sign up for the Medicaid program, which provides almost free health services insurance. Medicaid is a jointly financed program between the States and the federal government.
But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, temporary insurance, which only pays for life -saving services to an ambulance for everyone, including citizens from outside the USA. In emergency medicaid is often used by immigrants, including those who are legally present and those who are not.
Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate moments, said Hannah Katch, previous CMS advisor during Biden administration.
“It is unthinkable that CMS would violate confidence in Medicaid registration in this way,” said Katch. She said that the registered personal data were not historically made available outside the agency, unless to enforce the law to examine waste, fraud or program abuse.
The Trump team aggressively implemented information
Last month, Trump officials demanded that employees of the Federal Health Agency provide personal information about millions of Medicaid from seven states that allow citizens from outside the US to sign up for full Medicaid programs.
The United States launched these programs during Biden administration and stated that it would not issue a federal government to cover the costs of healthcare for these immigrants. All states – California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado – have democratic governors.
Sharing data to DHS officials caused universal reactions of legislators and governors. Since then, twenty states have sued this movement, claiming violated the federal provisions on health privacy.
CMS officials had previously fought and did not stop sharing data that is currently at the center of lawsuits. On Monday, CMS officials once again debated whether they should provide access to DHS, citing concerns about ongoing court disputes.
In the E -Mail network obtained by the AP called “Hold Dhs Access – urgent”, legal director of CMS Rujul H. Desai, said that he should first ask the Department of Justice to refer to the White House directly for “pause” in the scope of providing information. In response the next day, the lawyer of HHS, Lena Amanti Yueh, said that the Department of Justice “felt comfortable with CMS with providing DHS access”.
Dozens of congress members, including a democratic senator Adam Schiff from California, sent letters last month to DHS and HHS officials, demanding that the division of information be stopped.
“The huge transfer of personal data of millions of recipients Medicaid should alert every American. This huge violation of our privacy provisions must be immediately suspended,” said Schiff in response to the description of the new, extended AP agreement. “This will harm families throughout the country and cause that only more citizens give up access to healthcare.”
The new agreement explains that DHS will use data for identification, for the purposes of deportation, people who illegally in the country. But HHS officials have repeatedly maintained that it would be used primarily as a savings means to investigate whether citizens from outside the US incorrectly gained access to Medicaid benefits.
“HHS operated completely within its legal authority – and in full compliance with all applicable regulations – in order to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for persons who are legally entitled to accept them,” Nixon said in a statement corresponding to the lawsuits last month.
