Why were 6.3K migrants moved to Social Security's ‘death' list?

The Hill

15-04-2025

More than 6,300 migrants who are authorized to work in the U.S. have been moved to a Social Security Administration (SSA) list of people who have died after officials deemed them to pose security threats or as wanted by federal law enforcement agencies.
A White House official confirmed to NewsNation that the immigrants who were transferred to the SSA's Ineligible Master File — previously known as the Death Master File — were found by the Department of Homeland Security to be on the terrorist watch list or to have FBI criminal records. All of those moved to the list entered the U.S. illegally during the Biden administration, the official stated.
As of April 8, those on the list lost their temporary parole from Customs and Border Protection, making them ineligible to obtain work authorization or receive benefits such as unemployment payments, college loans or Medicaid, the official said.
The Trump administration has praised the actions.
'President Trump promised mass deportations and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,' White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston said in a statement provided to NewsNation. 'He is delivering on his promise he made to the American people.'
Others, however, have raised concerns about adding living people to a list supposedly reserved for those who have died. The New York Times, citing two people with knowledge of the process of adding the migrants to the list, which includes children, said that they will be given supposed dates of death. In addition to losing the ability to work or collect federal benefits, the lack of a Social Security number makes other financial matters difficult, the report said.
'It's tantamount to financial murder,' Martin O'Malley, who served as the commissioner of the SSA during the Biden administration, told the newspaper.
What is the Social Security Ineligibility Master List?
The Ineligibility Master List is an SSA data list that includes more than 94 million records dating back to 1936. It was created from Social Security records of people who have died and who were issued Social Security numbers.
The Times reviewed documents that included the names of the 6,300 migrants who were moved to the list at the urging of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Once on the Ineligibility Master List, a person's Social Security number or Tax Identification Number is revoked, barring them from collecting certain benefits.
In an email to SSA staff obtained by the newspaper from acting director Leland Dudek, the agency leader wrote that the financial lives of those migrants added to the list 'would be terminated.'
A White House official stated that of those added to the list, 905 of them were collecting Medicaid benefits totaling $276,000, including four people who were on the terrorist watch list. Another 41 of the migrants who previously were issued tax ID numbers had received $42,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, while 22 had federal student loans totaling $289,000.
The move comes shortly after several IRS officials resigned after the agency said it would assist federal agents in locating immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The IRS previously agreed to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to migrant tax information.
Does stripping migrants of Social Security numbers drive deportations?
Some experts warn the transfer of living persons to the SSA 'death' list violates privacy laws, The Washington Post reported. In March, the SSA posted that 'instances when a person is erroneously reported as deceased to Social Security can be devastating to the individual, spouse and dependent children.'
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently revoked the legal status of 985,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. through the CBP One app during the Biden administration.
Those mobile app users made appointments to seek asylum and obtain work authorizations. However, the Trump administration disabled the CBP One app and replaced it with the CBP Home app, which includes functionality that assists migrants with self-deporting themselves.
DHS previously revoked parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, who had also sought parole through the CBP One app, so long as they could also secure a U.S.-based financial sponsor. The more than 500,000 people affected will lose their status April 24.
Elon Musk's previous claims about migrants and Social Security
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the top adviser for the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), recently claimed at a Wisconsin rally that more than 2 million immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally were given Social Security numbers during fiscal year 2024 alone, giving them improper access to benefits.
That figure was a sharp increase from the 590,000 noncitizens who received Social Security numbers in fiscal year 2022 and the 964,000 who received them in 2023, federal data showed.
The SSA reports that, in general, only noncitizens who are authorized by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to work in the country are eligible to receive Social Security numbers.
Musk previously claimed that he had uncovered 'the biggest fraud in history' when he said DOGE found millions of people who were over 100 years of age listed in the Social Security database.
However, NewsNation previously reported that while Dudek acknowledged that there are people who have Social Security numbers who do not have a date of death linked to their record, those people are 'not necessarily receiving benefits.
A 2024 report by the Social Security inspector general showed that between 2015 and 2022, less than 1 percent of the $8.6 trillion paid out in benefits was distributed improperly. Most of those funds were overpayments made to living people.
'What Musk has tweeted is not primarily an example of fraud but more like the messy databases kept by Social Security,' said Alex Nowrasteh, the vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.