The quest of the Trump government to swiftly gather substantial sensitive personal data concerning the vast U.S. populace is expanding into a new dimension: the vast databases managed by various states. This data could fortify the Federal government’s immigration control initiatives, a deviation from established customs and norms, consequently raising legal queries. This administration’s insistence on commandeering or sharing confidential government data for unprecedented uses is consistently evident. The Department of Agriculture indicated last month that states will have to relinquish individuals’ names, Social Security details, residential addresses, and birthdays who applied to the Federal food aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spanning the last five years. Non-compliance could lead to a potential cut in their federal funds.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement department has bogged states and localities with demands for records comprising non-citizens’ personal information. Just this month, federal health representatives conferred data from millions of Medicaid beneficiaries across select states to the Department of Homeland Security responsible for immigration control. Trump’s endeavor to centralize data is empowered by an executive order he endorsed titled Stopping Waste, Fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos. This order asserts the federal government’s undistracted access to data from state programs backed by federal funds – even datasets preserved by third parties, to thwart bureaucratic duplicity and inefficiency, and augment the government’s abilities to identify overpayments and fraud.
In spite of data sharing amongst government entities potentially leading to greater efficiencies, it poses a risk of violating federal laws designed to curtail unrestricted federal access to personal data. Based on the Privacy Act of 1974, it is mandatory for federal agencies to inform the public of the ways they plan to use and shield personal data before any collection begins and to avoid usage of data beyond that stipulated purpose. Privacy experts have sounded the alarm on the staggering consequences if federal authorities could seize the sensitive data currently exclusive to states and use it extensively without any limitations.
One grave concern is the possibility of the government using the data to establish potent surveillance tools for usage against the U.S. citizens. Data, once erratically commandeered, and especially when it is consolidated, opens up numerous avenues for misuse. It’s crucial for every citizen to comprehend that once done, there is no returning. There have been cases in other countries where data has been utilized to ruthlessly crush any form of opposition.
President Trump is enforcing a streamlined data collection across all government agencies to boost governmental efficiencies and maximize taxpayer value. Rest assured, the Trump Administration is dedicated to safeguarding Americans’ privacy. The current administration has been harnessing the data across the Federal government for months to weed out waste, fraud, and misuse. This includes investigating noncitizens fraudulently receiving public benefits. Moreover, this consolidation could facilitate the monitoring of noncitizens and increase deportations.
Originally led by tech tycoon Elon Musk, Government Efficiency’s department within the administration played a vital role in conjoining federal databases for such reasons. The department has gained access to multiple comprehensive federal databases. Early this year, the Department of Homeland Security entered into agreements with the Internal Revenue Service and Housing and Urban Development to obtain noncitizen data.
The Trump administration’s endeavors to share data government-wide continued with this month’s transfer of Medicaid data. This incident has been arguably one of the most significant known examples of sensitive state data being shared among federal agencies. High-ranking officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services instructed staff at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to provide the Department of Homeland Security with sensitive data covering millions of Medicaid beneficiaries across specific states.
The data includes Medicaid recipients from California, Illinois, Washington, and Washington D.C., which allow some noncitizens, who do not qualify federally, to enroll in Medicaid funded by the state. States must routinely share meticulous data concerning Medicaid beneficiaries with CMS which contains names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and immigration status, banking on its confidentiality and security.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services interpreted the transfer as legal interagency data sharing with the Department of Homeland Security. The aim of the transfer, according to CMS’s director, was to clamp down on states potentially misusing federal Medicaid funds to subsidize care for undocumented immigrants. A DHS spokesperson said, “US agencies are seeking to ascertain that illegal aliens aren’t wrongfully receiving Medicaid benefits meant for law-abiding Americans,” but fell short of providing specifics about the type of data received.
Critics who have been on alert for potential misuse of state data identified last week’s Medicaid data handover to the DHS as a watershed moment. If your agenda is to foster a policy supporting society’s most vulnerable, this approach is utterly nonsensical. But if you’re aiming to entwine critical assistance into a cog system for surveilling immigrants, fragmenting families, and deporting individuals without due process, then this is exactly the way to achieve it.
Following the new data-sharing guidance USDA gave states last month, demanding the personal information of tens of millions of SNAP beneficiaries, the USDA was sued over allegations of violating federal privacy laws. Ultimately, USDA assured the court that data collection would only commence once legal requirements were met and data safety could be guaranteed.
USDA publicly announced its intention to collect data, as mandated by the Privacy Act. The notice states that USDA would cross-verify SNAP applicants with federal databases for eligibility, including the checks on immigration status and detection of redundant enrollments. The notice’s language hints at a potential broader use of the collected data compared to previous department datasets.
In Trump’s second term, federal entities began screening state voter records for potential noncitizens as directed by the President’s executive order on elections. As a former federal prosecutor who has worked alongside various state and federal law enforcement entities, Allan Medina voiced that while cross-agency data sharing can be a significant resource, its execution should be judicious, as it raises questions on the recipients of sensitive data. Various lawsuits have been filed challenging DOGE’s access to data on privacy grounds, with divided court decisions. The unique data demands from the federal government have states exercising caution in their responses, wary of possibly infracting state privacy laws by inappropriately relinquishing records.
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