The reality of navigating immigration enforcement and abortion bans as a pregnant migrant
President Donald Trump's efforts to significantly restrict immigration have extended the presence of immigration enforcement officers to schools, churches and hospitals. The administration is also rolling back funding for organizations that provide services for immigrants, as well as states and cities with legal protections. These policies have raised the risks that immigration restrictions and limited abortion access present to the health and well-being of pregnant undocumented people.
As a result, people in fear of deportation may avoid hospitals when they face pregnancy complications, or they may attempt to move to another state with protections for reproductive care, which could further put them in the crosshairs of immigration or law enforcement officials. The 19th spoke to Paula Ávila-Guillén, a Colombian human rights lawyer and executive director at the Women's Equality Center, about the intersections between abortion access and immigration, the effect of the second Trump administration so far and how national abortion groups can elevate the perspectives of immigrants. Her group, which is based in New York, focuses on supporting reproductive justice work and messaging in Latin America and the Caribbean — work that also affects people in the United States.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Candice Norwood: It's been almost three years since federal abortion protections were overturned. What are some of the ways that you have seen state abortion restrictions affecting undocumented pregnant people?
Paula Ávila-Guillén: There are multiple layers. We are already seeing data that's coming out of Texas that there is a spike in sepsis, which is a condition that starts creating an infection in your entire body and is one of the main causes of maternal mortality across the world. Sepsis is something that unfortunately we see often in countries that have total abortion bans and significant restrictions. So, one consequence is death from sepsis, or maybe you don't die, but you can develop other health issues because you are afraid to go to the doctor for treatment.
Then there's the threat of family separation. Most people who have abortions have children already, so if you are in a situation where you are forced to go to a hospital because of pregnancy complications, and if the hospital happens to have an immigration officer, you might get deported and your family is separated.
In other cases, you might not be able to access abortion and could be afraid to order abortion pills online because you think that will reveal your immigration status. Your only solution might be to travel out of the state to be able to get that care. But you might not have a driver's license if you are undocumented and live in a state with strict immigration laws, so you might not be able to drive or take a plane.
If you're lucky enough that you have a community that helps you to leave the state, you are also going to have economic and legal consequences of having to travel undocumented and find another job in another state. We're finding a lot of immigrants right now are relocating, going from very hostile states to states that might be more welcoming, but there are all these extra barriers if you don't have proper documents.
There's been a lot of discussion about government surveillance as it relates to reproductive care. How is the monitoring we see in the criminal legal system converging with patients' health care when it comes to undocumented people?
This is something we are seeing a big shift with in the Trump administration. The moment that the Trump administration is allowing immigration officers to enter hospitals, to enter health care centers, the administration is immediately converting emergency waiting rooms into possible interrogation rooms. This is something that is going to make a person who is already afraid and doesn't have documents to not seek health care.
Something we have seen in the case of El Salvador, which has a total abortion ban, is that at one point there were over 165 women in prison, the large majority because of miscarriages. At the moment that they were being interrogated by a cop in the hospital bed, they were not giving the perfect answers to the police and therefore, immediately that made them suspects. The police opened a case that didn't allow the women to go anywhere. They would go from the hospital to prison.
So, for immigrants in the United States who fear this, the response is 'Well, I am not going to seek health care because the risk is I may be deported and separated from my family.'
In 2017 there were court battles over the Trump administration's attempt to restrict abortion access for pregnant people in federal custody. Do you know if the current administration has made any changes to how it will treat pregnant people who are detained?
I don't have any specifics on that, but regardless of whether there's a policy or not, because of the level of pressure that the administration is putting onto ICE agents in terms of numbers, I am certain that the reality is that they're going to do whatever is necessary to reach a quota. They have a certain number of people they want to detain per day.
There's a lot of talk about President Obama detaining a lot of people, but the narrative that was coming out at the time was not a narrative that was necessarily anti-immigrant. It was not a narrative to say that immigrants were bad people, that we needed to take them out of this country, that immigrants are the reason why the economy is not working.
That narrative from the Trump administration makes a big shift because it creates the hostile conditions in which abuse usually happens, abuse by officers who feel encouraged and protected by the administration to do whatever they think is necessary to fulfill their needs. But it also creates a level of fear that brings immigrants to say, 'I am not going to a hospital right now.'
I also think it's relevant to highlight that with the [attempted] cuts of U.S. aid and all the funding in Latin America and Africa, what they're going to do is they're going to create an exacerbation of migration.
And if that's the case, I imagine that a number of those migrants could be pregnant.
As scary as the journey across the border could be, many women try to travel pregnant because there is a belief that if they are pregnant they will avoid being raped. This is one of those tales sold to immigrant people. There's also the thought that if you have a baby in the United States then the baby is going to be a citizen, right? So that adds an extra layer.
Are there any other things you are going to be paying attention to during the Trump administration when it comes to immigration policies and reproductive rights?
One is that even people who are undocumented have different levels of privilege depending on where they live. And I think that that's going to have a direct impact on those who live in some states versus others, and that's going to cause a bit of internal migration.
Another thing is that abortion access right now is popular across public opinion polls and support has increased. That is not the case for immigration. So I think it's important for us as an abortion movement, as a reproductive justice movement, to work alongside our immigrant communities and use our voices to highlight how these policies are having a disproportionate impact on immigrant communities. I think that the movement has a duty to use its growing popularity to also advocate for those who maybe don't feel in the same situation.
The post The reality of navigating immigration enforcement and abortion bans as a pregnant migrant appeared first on The 19th.
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Boston Globe
13 hours ago
- Boston Globe
The research lost because of Trump's NIH cuts
The NIH has rarely revoked funding once it has been awarded. Out of the tens of thousands of grants overseen by the institution Then Donald Trump was reelected. Advertisement Since his January inauguration, his administration has terminated more than 1,450 grants, withholding more than $750 million in funds; officials have said they are curbing wasteful spending and 'unscientific' research. The Department of Government Efficiency gave the agency 'The decision to terminate certain grants is part of a deliberate effort to ensure taxpayer dollars prioritize high-impact, urgent science,' said Andrew G. Nixon, the director of communications for the Department of Health and Human Services. He did not respond to questions about the terminated grants or how patients may be impacted, but he said, 'Many discontinued projects were duplicative or misaligned with NIH's core mission. NIH remains focused on supporting rigorous biomedical research that delivers real results — not radical ideology.' Advertisement Targeted projects, however, were seeking cures for future pandemics, examining the causes of dementia and trying to prevent HIV transmission. The mass cancellation of grants in response to political policy shifts has no precedent, former and current NIH officials told ProPublica. It threatens the stability of the institution and the scientific enterprise of the nation at large. Hundreds of current and former NIH staffers It has been difficult for scientists and journalists to convey the enormity of what has happened these past few months and what it portends for the years and decades to come. News organizations have chronicled cuts to individual projects and sought to quantify the effects of lost spending on broad fields of study. To gain a deeper understanding of the toll, ProPublica reached out to more than 500 researchers, scientists and investigators whose grants were terminated. More than 150 responded to share their experiences, which reveal consequences that experts say run counter to scientific logic and even common sense. They spoke of the tremendous waste generated by an effort intended to save money — years of government-funded research that may never be published, blood samples in danger of spoiling before they can be analyzed. Advertisement Work to address disparities in health, once considered so critical to medical advancement that it was Researchers catalogued many fears — about the questions they won't get to answer, the cures they will fail to find and the colleagues they will lose to more supportive countries. But most of all, they said they worried about the people who, because of these cuts, will die. Research Frozen The NIH often awards funding in multiyear grants, giving scientists the time and intellectual freedom to pursue their work uninterrupted. They plan experiments, hire staff and make equipment purchases on long timelines. Now, studies can't be completed. Papers can't be published. Years of research may be lost and millions of dollars wasted. After the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, demographer Diana Greene Foster set out to study the outcomes of pregnant patients who showed up in emergency departments. She wanted to know whether state restrictions were causing delays in care. 'This needs to be answered for courts to consider the evidence,' said Foster, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. 'Every day that goes by, people are potentially at risk.' Less than one year into a five-year NIH grant, she had arrived at some early findings: 'Abortion bans don't stop very many people from getting abortions,' she said. 'Bans actually cause people to have their abortions later in pregnancy.' For those who live in states with bans, she found, second-trimester abortions increased from 8% of procedures to 17%, requiring more complex interventions to end their pregnancies and increasing their risk of complications. Advertisement But before the data could be published, the NIH informed her on March 21 that the grant was terminated. It was no longer in line with agency priorities, a letter stated, specifying that studies on 'gender identity' 'ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities.' The termination left Foster confused. 'They are wrong that studying gender minority populations is not important,' she said. 'But my study is not about gender identity. It is relevant to anyone who is pregnant, regardless of how they identify.' Foster had to pause her research while she searched for other funding. 'This was clearly a politically motivated cut,' she said. ProPublica heard from more than 70 researchers who said that they were unable to continue their projects due to the terminations. 'Two and a half years into a three-year grant, and to all of a sudden stop and not fully be able to answer the original questions, it's just a waste.' Ethan Moitra, associate professor at Brown University, who was researching whether brief therapy can improve mental health for LGBTQ+ people. 'We are now scrambling to figure out if there are parts we can continue or salvage.' Julia Marcus, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, who was researching whether HIV prevention medicine can be made available over the counter. 'To build trust between health care providers, health researchers in communities takes decades of work, and scientists have already done the work. Now this is going to be depleted.' Jesus Ramirez-Valles, professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who was examining how HIV impacts the physical and mental health of gay men as they age. Advertisement Patient Studies Interrupted In addition to jeopardizing data, terminating a grant in the middle of an active study may worsen participants' conditions and put them at higher risk of death. A single daily pill can nearly eliminate the risk of contracting HIV — but only when taken as prescribed. Black and Latino men who have sex with men have more than a Working with community clinics across Mississippi, Washington, D.C., and Rhode Island, Brown University professors Amy Nunn and Dr. Philip Chan set out to examine The study provides aggressive case management to help patients navigate the health care system and stay on the treatment, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, which is available in both oral and injectable forms. Workers provide patients with reminders, help them get coverage and even pick up their medicine. In 2023, the researchers received about $3.7 million in NIH funding for five years of work. Their team was just starting to gather data that showed the program's efficacy when the grant was terminated. 'This is science that had really great chances of having a huge impact, and all of a sudden, it's cut off at the knee,' Nunn said. Advertisement Chan told ProPublica that he worries that the patients in their study could be harmed by the cut. 'There's no doubt that some of them are going to not stay on PrEP,' said Chan, 'and that some of them are going to get HIV.' At least 30 researchers told ProPublica that the termination of their grant forced them to end clinical research or a trial abruptly, leaving participants in limbo. 'We cannot assay the blood samples that we have collected and paid participants for. A total waste of the money and resources that went into collecting the data.' Sarah Whitton, professor at the University of Cincinnati, who was identifying risk factors for mental illness and suicidality for young LGBTQ+ women. 'We have also had to quickly scramble to keep the study going unfunded to avoid having to stop the treatment and clinical trial for those already enrolled.' Tiffany Brown, assistant professor at Auburn University, who was developing an eating disorder treatment for LGBTQ+ patients. 'With a clinical trial, if you can't follow participants to the end, you have no information, because the whole point is to see whether there's change from beginning to end.' Katie Biello, professor and chair of epidemiology at Brown University's School of Public Health, who was trying to improve adherence to medication protocols for adolescents with HIV in Brazil. Disparities Disregarded The Trump administration has banned the NIH from funding grants with a perceived connection to 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' alleging that such projects may be discriminatory. Caught up in the wave of terminations is work seeking to understand why some populations — including women and sexual, racial or ethnic minorities — may be more at risk of certain disorders or diseases. Despite preventative vaccines and improved screening, more than 4,000 women die every year from cervical cancer. Black and Hispanic women are more likely than their white peers to be diagnosed, and often at later stages. After more than a decade of studying cancer care disparities, epidemiologist Adana Llanos found that the ZIP code in which a woman received care often plays a pivotal role in how she fares. And in 2023, Llanos and her colleagues were awarded a multiyear NIH grant to further examine inequities, specifically in cervical cancer care and who survives it. Even though their work targets the women most at risk, Llanos said their research, like most health equity research, will increase our understanding of cervical cancer more broadly. 'This work has the potential to improve cancer outcomes for everyone, no matter what you identify as, no matter what your characteristics are,' she said. Last year, her team began to recruit a cohort of 960 women who had been diagnosed with cervical cancer to track their patterns of care and outcomes. But in March, after the researchers had enrolled about 200 participants, the NIH terminated the funding. Llanos paused enrollment. The cancellation felt like a betrayal of her study's participants, she said. Llanos had spent years developing relationships with community groups and cancer patients, gaining their trust so they would feel comfortable sharing their treatment experiences. 'We've made commitments to them,' she said. More than 550 of the terminated grants were focused on health disparities or inequities, attempting to understand why some groups have different health outcomes. 'If you cannot identify groups that are higher risk, it seems like just really bad science. That's sort of the basics of how you try to conquer a disease.' Carl Latkin, professor at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was analyzing the comorbidities of people who have HIV and those at risk for getting it. 'Health disparities are just going to get larger, and real folks are going to die.' Marguerita Lightfoot, professor at the Oregon Health & Science University–Portland State University School of Public Health, who was studying the value of guaranteed income and financial mentoring to Black youth. 'It's a major principle of epidemiology to target work towards the people who are being disproportionately affected. Now we're being told that we cannot mention them in our research.' Dr. Matthew Spinelli, assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who was working to prevent sexually transmitted infections with common antibiotics. LGBTQ+ People Targeted One of Trump's first executive orders was a directive In response to a lawsuit, a federal judge issued an injunction barring the administration from Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults are over three times more likely to consider suicide than their heterosexual peers. Few studies have aimed to figure out how to prevent this. Last year, Lauren Forrest, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, received a multiyear grant to do so, focusing on LGBTQ+ people who live in rural areas where access to specialized care may be more limited. She was planning to recruit dozens of participants. But on March 21, she received a notification from the NIH that her grant was terminated because it did not 'effectuate' the agency's priorities, citing its connection to 'gender identity.' 'The way they're going about deciding which grants will or won't be terminated, it's not about scientific rigor,' she said. 'It's about literally actively discriminating against health-disparity populations.' Forrest has been forced to reduce the hours of her research staff, and she now risks losing key lab personnel who may have to seek other employment due to the cuts. 'There is no way to recover the lost time, research continuity or training value once disrupted,' she said. She worries most about the deaths that could have been prevented. 'People are going to be harmed because of this,' she said. More than 300 of the grants terminated by the NIH were focused on LGBTQ+ health care. About 40 of those grants were researching ways to prevent suicide in adults and youth. 'We have a paper that's ready to go out that shows lesbian women are almost 3 times as likely to have a stillbirth compared to their heterosexual peers. That's such an avoidable, horrible outcome to happen, and that paper may never be published.' Brittany Charlton, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, who was quantifying obstetrical outcomes for lesbian, gay and bisexual women. 'It is devastating to have state-sanctioned dehumanization and exclusion. I am afraid for what these messages will do to the mental health of youth who are told they don't matter or, for some, that they don't even exist by parts of society.' Dr. Sarah Goff, professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was studying how to improve the delivery of mental health care to LGBTQ+ youth. 'I honestly burst into tears. The evidence we would have gained from this work will not exist.' Kirsty Clark, assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, who was finding best practices for preventing suicide in LGBTQ+ preteens. Losing a Generation The grant terminations and subsequent instability have created a lost generation of scientists, dozens of researchers told ProPublica — cutting off an established pipeline at all stages of researchers' careers. Universities are trimming the number of openings in postdoctoral and graduate programs. Young researchers are struggling to find funding to initiate studies or open new laboratories. And some scientists are opting to pursue opportunities abroad. Dr. Lauren Harasymiw was a medical resident in a neonatal intensive care unit when an infant took a turn for the worse. Born at only 23 weeks gestation — the edge of viability — the baby girl experienced a hemorrhage within the ventricles of her brain. 'What does this mean for her?' Harasymiw recalls asking her attending physician. The supervisor didn't know. 'The field of neonatology has made incredible strides over the last decades in helping our babies survive,' Harasymiw said. 'But we've made less progress in protecting their neurodevelopmental outcomes.' If doctors could better assess infants' outcomes after a brain injury, they could target interventions sooner and provide families with better resources. To advance this area of medicine, Harasymiw pursued NIH-funded training to become a pediatric scientist. But in March, the NIH terminated funding for the Pediatric Scientist Development Program, which funded Harasymiw's salary and research, claiming that the program was connected to 'DEI.' 'This is just ripping out the foundation of my career,' Harasymiw said. In a statement about the grant terminations, Nixon, the HHS spokesperson, said that the NIH 'continues to invest robustly in training and career development opportunities that produce measurable contributions to biomedical science and patient care.' However, he added that 'while fostering the next generation of scientists is essential, effective leadership requires clear focus: prioritizing research that is impactful and results-driven over duplicative or low-yield programs.' Dr. Sallie Permar, who runs the program and is chair of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, was perplexed by the cut; the program seemed to be in line with the administration's focus on combating chronic disease in children. 'That's exactly what we're training these scholars to do,' she said. More than 50 researchers told ProPublica that the funding cuts would harm the next generation of scholars, discouraging them from practicing in the United States. 'We have a generation of researchers that were planning to focus on these questions that are now either scared or don't have funding to continue their training, or both.' Mandi Pratt-Chapman, associate center director for community outreach, engagement and equity at the George Washington Cancer Center, who was identifying best practices for collecting data about LGBTQ+ people at small and rural cancer centers. 'Admissions for graduate school have been downsized to a point where prospective students are giving up on pursuing a Ph.D.' Tigist Tamir, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who received a career development grant and was studying how oxidative stress is regulated in breast cancer and obesity. 'I already know several researchers on the job search who ended up taking faculty positions in Canada instead of the U.S.' Dr. Benjamin Solomon, instructor of immunology and allergy in the department of pediatrics at Stanford Medical School, who received a career development grant and was examining rare genetic immune diseases in children .
Miami Herald
15 hours ago
- Miami Herald
US Could Make Childbirth Free, To Tackle Falling Birth Rates
America could make childbirth free for privately-insured families, in an effort to tackle declining birth rates. The bipartisan Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act, which would designate maternity care as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act, was introduced in the Senate in May. If passed, insurance companies would be required to cover all childbirth-related expenses, including prenatal care, ultrasounds, delivery and postpartum care, without any co-pays or deductibles. Medicaid, America's government‐funded health insurance program, already covers these costs. Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has cosponsored the bill, told Newsweek: "Even with insurance, the costs associated with having a baby can be astronomical, and expenses are even greater for women who have health complications during pregnancy, a high-deductible insurance plan, or gaps in their coverage. By requiring insurance companies to fully cover care throughout pregnancy and a year postpartum, this bill will make childbirth more affordable for families." It comes amid growing concerns about America's population. Fertility rates are projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released this year. This number is well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration. The Donald Trump administration has made this issue one of its priorities, the White House exploring giving women a "baby bonus" of $5,000, according to an April New York Times report. Many trying to tackle this global issue have called for public health policies and financial plans to help make it easier for couples to have children in society. The financial crisis and its effect on housing, inflation and pay is generally named as a major contributor to people's decisions to delay having children, to have fewer children or not to have them at all. Republican Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who introduced the bill along with Gillibrand, Democratic Virginia Senator Time Kaine and Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, said she hopes her bill will help change this. "Bringing a child into the world is costly enough without piling on cost-share fees that saddle many mothers and families with debt. This legislation would take away some of the burden for childbearing generations," she said in May. "By relieving financial stresses associated with pregnancy and childbirth, hopefully more families will be encouraged to embrace the beautiful gift and responsibility of parenthood." Pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care average a total of $18,865 with average out-of-pocket payments totaling $2,854, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, based on data from claims between 2018 and 2022. Financial concerns are repeatedly cited as a reason for not having children. Indeed, just a few days ago, the United Nations Population Fund warned of a global birth rate crisis, after finding that one in five had not had or did not expect to have the number of children they wanted. Some 39 percent said this was because of financial limitations. But Suzanne Bell, who studies fertility and related behaviors with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that while "making childbirth cheaper or free is incredibly important," she does not think it will effect the birth rate. "The cost of raising a child, in particular the cost of child care, is very high and far outweighs the cost of childbirth," she told Newsweek. "We desperately need policies that support families with the cost of child care, especially families with low incomes." Beth Jarosz, a senior program director U.S. programs at the Population Reference Bureau, agreed that "reducing health care costs is important, but may not be enough to move the needle on births." "The cost of childbirth is just one of the many costs of having a child, and people are also reeling from the much bigger costs of child care, housing, and other necessities," she told Newsweek. Theodore D Cosco, a research fellow at the University of Oxford's Institute of Population Aging, called the bill "a step in the right direction" but said the same as Bell and Jarosz. "Parents generally aren't deciding whether to have children based on a $3,000 delivery bill, they're looking at the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent actually raising the child," he told Newsweek. But he added: "The policy certainly carries some symbolic weight, signaling bipartisan support for families and could potentially help build momentum for broader reforms, such as child care subsidies or paid parental leave." The other concern is that, while financial concerns are generally accepted as a major contributor to declining birth rates, they are not the lone cause. Bell said that even the policies she calls for "are also unlikely to increase the birth rate, as evidence from other countries with much more supportive policies suggest." Norway is considered a global leader in parental leave and child care policies, and the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) ranks it among the top countries for family-friendly policies. But it too is facing a birth rate crisis. Norway offers parents 12 months of shared paid leave for birth and an additional year each afterward. It also made kindergarten (similar to a U.S. day care) a statutory right for all children aged one or older in 2008. The government subsidizes the policy to make it possible for "women and men to combine work and family life," as Norway's former Minister of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion Solveig Horne said at a parental leave event in 2016. And yet, Norway's fertility rate has dropped dramatically from 1.98 children per woman in 2009 to 1.44 children per woman in 2024, according to official figures. The rate for 2023 (1.40) was the lowest ever recorded fertility rate in the country. Financial barriers "are only part of the picture," Cosco said, "psychological, cultural, and structural factors matter too." Newsweek spoke to several experts about Norway specifically, who all cited recent culture changes. For example, "young adults are more likely to live alone" and "young couples split up more frequently than before," Rannveig Kaldager Hart, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's Centre for Fertility and Health said. He went on to speak about "intensive parenting," which refers to the modern parenting style in which parents invest time, money and energy into creating successful adults. The expectations of this parenting style "may cause some to postpone or have fewer children than they otherwise would," Hart said. Nevertheless, backers of the American bill seem to believe that it may be part of the solution. "Being pro-family means fostering an economy that makes it feasible to raise a child. But too often, parents find themselves dealing with sky-high medical bills following the birth of a child. This legislation would eliminate out-of-pocket maternity costs for families with private health insurance and prohibit private carriers from imposing cost-sharing on beneficiaries, empowering parents to focus on what matters most," said Hawley. Related Articles Warning Of Global Birth Rate 'Crisis' After Study Of 14 CountriesChina Makes Childbirth Change Amid Falling Birth RateTrump Administration To Give $1,000 Boost to All Newborn BabiesMore Gen Z Delay Having Kids Than Millennials Amid Birth Rate Decline Fears 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Newsweek
15 hours ago
- Newsweek
Trump Administration Shares Medicaid Data With Deportation Officials: Report
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump's administration provided immigration officials with the personal data of millions of Medicaid recipients this week, including their immigration status, the Associated Press reported. Newsweek contacted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for comment on Saturday via online press inquiry forms. Why It Matters During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pledged to carry out the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. Since returning to office on January 20, the president has overseen widespread Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations across the country. The administration's use of Medicaid data, which could be used to track migrants, has raised questions about data security and federal government power. What To Know Citing an internal memo and emails, the AP reported that two close advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered officials at the CMS to transfer Medicaid data to immigration enforcement personnel at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday. The publication said the order was given after Medicaid employees initially sought to prevent the transfer based on legal and ethical concerns, and that they were given 54 minutes to comply with the renewed request. The information handed over included data from California, Washington state, Illinois and Washington, D.C.—all of which allow non-U.S. citizens to apply for state-funded Medicaid. President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 12. President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 12. SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY DHS employees' use of the data could affect migrants' ability to apply for permanent residency or citizenship if they have received federally funded Medicaid. Under the Trump administration's direction, the Internal Revenue Service has also been providing information to ICE that could help track illegal migrants. A legal bid to block the order was defeated in May. Last month, the CMS announced a review into Medicaid enrollment to ensure federal money had not been used to fund coverage for those with "unsatisfactory immigration status." The agency said the move was to comply with the "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders" executive order that Trump issued on February 19. What People Are Saying Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in statement provided to Newsweek: "HHS and CMS take the integrity of the Medicaid program and the protection of American taxpayer dollars extremely seriously. With respect to the recent data sharing between CMS and DHS, 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. He continued: "This action is not unprecedented. What is unprecedented is the systemic neglect and policy failures under the Biden-Harris administration that opened the floodgates for illegal immigrants to exploit Medicaid—and forced hardworking Americans to foot the bill." Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said Trump had "promised to protect Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. To keep that promise after Joe Biden flooded our country with tens of millions of illegal aliens CMS and DHS are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans." California Governor Gavin Newsom said: "This potential data transfer brought to our attention by the AP is extremely concerning, and if true, potentially unlawful, particularly given numerous headlines highlighting potential improper federal use of personal information and federal actions to target the personal information of Americans." What Happens Next The Trump administration is expected to continue its hard-line immigration policies. It remains to be seen whether the transfer of data from the HHS to the DHS will be challenged in court.
