Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients' personal data,
including addresses, to ICE
[July 18, 2025]
By KIMBERLY KINDY and AMANDA SEITZ
WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be
given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid
enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down
immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according
to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press.
The information will give ICE officials the ability to find “the
location of aliens” across the country, says the agreement signed Monday
between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the
Department of Homeland Security. The agreement has not been announced
publicly.
The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal health data to
deportation officials is the latest escalation in the Trump
administration’s immigration crackdown, which has repeatedly tested
legal boundaries in its effort to arrest 3,000 people daily.
Lawmakers and some CMS officials have challenged the legality of
deportation officials’ access to some states’ Medicaid enrollee data.
It's a move, first reported by the AP last month, that Health and Human
Services officials said was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the
program improperly.
But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE officials
intend to do with the health data.
“ICE will use the CMS data to allow ICE to receive identity and location
information on aliens identified by ICE,” the agreement says.
Such an action could ripple widely
Such disclosures, even if not acted upon, could cause widespread alarm
among people seeking emergency medical help for themselves or their
children. Other efforts to crack down on illegal immigration have made
schools, churches, courthouses and other everyday places feel perilous
to immigrants and even U.S. citizens who fear getting caught up in a
raid.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon would not respond to the latest agreement. It
is unclear, though, whether Homeland Security has yet accessed the
information. The department’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin,
said in an emailed statement that the two agencies “are exploring an
initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid
benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans.”
The database will reveal to ICE officials the names, addresses, birth
dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers
for all people enrolled in Medicaid. The state and federally funded
program provides health care coverage program for the poorest of people,
including millions of children.
The agreement does not allow ICE officials to download the data.
Instead, they will be allowed to access it for a limited period from 9
a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, until Sept. 9.
“They are trying to turn us into immigration agents,” said a CMS
official did not have permission to speak to the media and insisted on
anonymity.
Immigrants who are not living in the U.S. legally, as well as some
lawfully present immigrants, are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid
program that provides nearly-free coverage for health services. Medicaid
is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.
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But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, a
temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in
emergency rooms to anyone, including non-U.S. citizens. Emergency
Medicaid is often used by immigrants, including those who are
lawfully present and those who are not.
Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate
moments, said Hannah Katch, a previous adviser at CMS during the
Biden administration.
“It’s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid
enrollees in this way,” Katch said. She said the personally
identifiable information of enrollees has not been historically
shared outside of the agency unless for law enforcement purposes to
investigate waste, fraud or abuse of the program.
Trump team has pursued information aggressively
Trump officials last month demanded that the federal health agency’s
staffers release personally identifiable information on millions of
Medicaid enrollees from seven states that permit non-U.S. citizens
to enroll in their full Medicaid programs.
The states launched these programs during the Biden administration
and said they would not bill the federal government to cover the
health care costs of those immigrants. All the states — California,
New York, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado —
have Democratic governors.
That data sharing with DHS officials prompted widespread backlash
from lawmakers and governors. Twenty states have since sued over the
move, alleging it violated federal health privacy laws.
CMS officials previously fought and failed to stop the data sharing
that is now at the center of the lawsuits. On Monday, CMS officials
were once again debating whether they should provide DHS access,
citing concerns about the ongoing litigation.
In an email chain obtained by the AP called “Hold DHS Access —
URGENT,” CMS chief legal officer Rujul H. Desai said they should
first ask the Department of Justice to appeal to the White House
directly for a “pause” on the information sharing. In a response the
next day, HHS lawyer Lena Amanti Yueh said that the Justice
Department was “comfortable with CMS proceeding with providing DHS
access.”
Dozens of members of Congress, including Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff
of California, sent letters last month to DHS and HHS officials
demanding that the information-sharing stop.
“The massive transfer of the personal data of millions of Medicaid
recipients should alarm every American. This massive violation of
our privacy laws must be halted immediately,” Schiff said in
response to AP’s description of the new, expanded agreement. “It
will harm families across the nation and only cause more citizens to
forego lifesaving access to health care.”
The new agreement makes clear that DHS will use the data to
identify, for deportation purposes, people who in the country
illegally. But HHS officials have repeatedly maintained that it
would be used primarily as a cost-saving measure, to investigate
whether non-U.S. citizens were improperly accessing Medicaid
benefits.
“HHS acted entirely within its legal authority – and in full
compliance with all applicable laws – to ensure that Medicaid
benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to
receive them,” Nixon said in a statement responding to the lawsuits
last month.
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