On Fri, a group of unions & an advocacy org suing the #SocialSecurity Administration argued in a new court filing that the agency had violated a temporary restraining order blocking #DOGE from the agency’s systems w/personally identifiable information by adding names to the deaths database.

Meanwhile, the effort to move immigrants who are alive into the deaths database is proceeding. On Thurs, Social Security added 102 names, records show.

Among the people targeted were immigrants w/valid #SocialSecurity numbers who had lost legal status, such as those who participated in #Biden work programs that ended under the #Trump admin….

Within #SocialSecurity, the general counsel’s office is preparing an opinion that will find the Trump admin’s unprecedented use of the death database a violation of #privacy #law…. The opinion will take issue w/the agency knowingly & falsely declaring that living people are dead….

The ofcl said *some* are included on an FBI terror watch list.

The immigrants added to the death database include a 13-yr-old, a 14-yr-old & two 16-yr-olds—as well as one person in their 80s & a handful in their 70s….

Agency staff have since checked the names & #SocialSecurity numbers of some of the youngest immigrants against data the agency typically uses to search for criminal history & found NO EVIDENCE of crimes or law enforcement interactions, staffers said.

The next day, 6,100 mostly Hispanic names & their attached #SocialSecurity numbers were added to the Death Master File, acc/to records reviewed by The Post.

The #Trump White House told WaPo that the ~6k immigrants all have links to either terrorist activity or criminal records. [yeah right. a) no way did they bother investigating & b) we saw who they’ve labeled criminal/terrorists w/the #ElSalvador flights] The official did not provide evidence of the alleged crimes or terrorist ties…

No such resistance emerged this time.

In recent weeks, #DHS’s requests shifted, acc/to a senior #SocialSecurity ofcl. #Immigration agents began meeting w/ #DOGE reps at the agency to discuss how they could achieve their larger goal of pushing out tens of thousands of migrants that #ICE was struggling to apprehend & deport, the official said.

That request soon morphed into the idea of placing immigrants into the deaths database….

It was not the first time that #Trump ofcls sought to make #SocialSecurity hand over some of the government’s most sensitive personally identifiable information to facilitate #deportations. During Trump’s first term, a White House aide requested the names & Social Security numbers of employers thought to have hired undocumented immigrants….
At the time, the general counsel’s office at Social Security said no. They had determined such a search would be a fishing expedition…& would break the #law…

#DHS, meanwhile, at first made less intrusive requests….Agents spent much of Feb & March trawling through years of records in E-Verify…to identify potentially fraudulent #SocialSecurity numbers…. Agents then reached out to Social Security asking for help preventing this type of fraud….

DHS also requested that SSA staff turn over the addresses of undocumented immigrants so #ICE could track them down for #deportation….

By March, #DOGE’s focus on #immigration issues was clear…. DOGE reps were asking a lot of questions about which kinds of address, wage & tax data they could access, & how that information could be used to determine citizenship status, the people said.

One official chose to resign rather than remain involved in what he saw as an illegal attempt to repurpose the agency for immigration enforcement.

…Around the same time #SocialSecurity staff were warning that the agency’s ability to declare deaths could be exploited, #DHS & #DOGE arrived…. Soon, reps of both groups were hunting for ways to repurpose…databases to identify & deport…immigrants.

A small staff of career employees was assigned to work w/ #Musk’s team on the project….They were concerned that they might be facilitating something illegal, asking…if they were at risk of going to jail for the work they were doing….

But no solution was enacted.

Entry into the Death Master File has potentially severe consequences, effectively erasing a person’s ability to live & draw wages in the US, acc/to Jim Francis, a consumer law attorney. Francis—who recently sued #SocialSecurity for mistakenly labeling a MD woman dead—noted that the agency sells its death info to creditors, pension companies, life insurers & credit reporting firms.

…Staffers at #SocialSecurity began raising the alarm about the urgent need to address a flaw in the agency’s deaths database in Feb….

Anybody granted the appropriate permissions within Social Security could mark someone as dead, employees realized, w/o having to prove their demise in any way — e.g. by referencing…a death certificate. In emails & meetings that rose up the management chain, employees warned that the dataset was vulnerable to manipulation….

Experts in govt, consumer rights & #immigration #law said the #Trump admin’s action is illegal. Labeling people dead strips them of the #privacy protections granted to living individuals—& knowingly classifying living people as dead counts as falsifying govt records. This is in addition to the #harm inflicted on those declared dead,who become unable to legally earn a living wage or draw benefits… #SocialSecurity itself has acknowledged that an incorrect death declaration is a “devastating” blow.

This account of how the #Trump admin pushed #SocialSecurity to wrongly declare thousands of living immigrants dead is based on interviews w/15 people, including current & former Social Security ofcls, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, as well as more than two dozen pages of records obtained by WaPo.

The episode also followed earlier warnings from senior #SocialSecurity ofcls that the database was insecure & could be easily edited without proof of death—a vulnerability, staffers say, that the #Trump admin has now exploited.

The warnings & Pearre’s removal have not previously been reported.

Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of tech experts, had pushed back on the #Trump admin’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a #SocialSecurity death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages &, ofcls hoped, spurring them to leave the country. In particular, Pearre had clashed w/Scott Coulter, the new chief info officer installed by #ElonMusk. Pearre told Coulter that the plan was #illegal, #cruel & risked declaring the wrong people dead.…