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The Independent
28-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Elon Musk's ‘efficiency' team is quietly building a vast immigration tracking database
What was first sold to the American people as a cost-cutting mission to 'eliminate waste' and save taxpayer money, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has morphed into seeking immigration data, experts and campaigners say. Musk's so-called DOGE group has moved at breakneck speed since the billionaire first mused about it in August 2024, shortly after endorsing Donald Trump for president. 'I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission,' Musk pitched to Trump during the conversation on X Spaces last summer. Its aim, he said, would be to ensure taxpayer money is spent 'in a good way.' 'And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission,' Musk offered. Since then, DOGE has overseen some of the 280,000 layoffs across 27 government agencies and pursued immigration-related data across departments, including Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. Its latest data mining conquest is the Justice Department, where DOGE officials have accessed a sensitive system containing detailed information about immigrants' interactions with the U.S. government. The system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review's Courts and Appeals System, contains records dating to at least the 1990s on millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, including addresses, case histories, court testimony and confidential interviews from asylum seekers, the Washington Post first reported. 'The initial mission, as stated, was to cut waste and eliminate fraud and abuse,' Lisa Gilbert, co-president of consumer rights group Public Citizen, which is involved in several lawsuits against the Trump administration, told The Independent. 'And very quickly it became clear that that was not their goal.' 'I don't think anyone could have predicted the pace and destructive nature of Elon Musk–helmed, conflict-ridden, tech-bro-filled, density storming into the federal government,' Gibert added. 'It's been unprecedented and hugely damaging, and it will take a long time for the government to recover.' Musk's team is using the highly sensitive data it has gathered to build a 'master database' at the Department of Homeland Security that could be used to 'track and surveil' undocumented immigrants, WIRED reported last week. Data sharing between government agencies is nothing new, but it has been limited to specific purposes. 'DHS has had access to certain components of Department of Justice information through an interagency scheduling tool, which allowed border agents to pull court dates to put on charging documents, or evidence for deportation proceedings,' Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, explained. 'What seems to be new, if reporting is accurate, is [DOGE's] access to information contained in the actual case files,' she told The Independent. Bush-Joseph emphasized the incredibly sensitive nature of the files, which in some cases will contain information to do with 'terrible violence and persecution' that some immigrants have suffered. 'The opaqueness of DOGE's data efforts should give Americans pause because it is not simply about creating efficiency,' global security and cyber expert Nicholas Reese, an adjunct instructor at NYU's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, added. 'It is also about security and building trust because this is not nameless and faceless data.' The Justice Department declined to comment when approached by The Independent. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security were also contacted for comment. Gerald Connolly, ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to the Social Security Administration's office of the inspector general last week about a whistleblower who told them that DOGE is building the 'master database,' consisting of sensitive data. The Committee 'received reports about troubling, fumbling efforts by DOGE to combine sensitive information held by SSA, the IRS, HHS, and other agencies into a single cross-agency master database,' Connolly's letter said. 'I am concerned that DOGE is moving personal information across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act or related laws, such that the American people are wholly unaware their data is being manipulated in this way.' A senior Homeland Security official, meanwhile, told WIRED that DOGE is 'trying to amass a huge amount of data' and 'it has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending.' Connolly told The Independent that the way in which DOGE is operating, particularly with accessing immigration data, is deeply 'alarming.' 'The Trump-Musk Administration is infiltrating agencies and weaponizing the information they steal to target and attack America's immigrant communities,' Connolly said. 'DOGE's dystopian demand for the sensitive, personal data of millions of Americans and immigrants is alarming, especially as this Administration abducts and disappears people off our streets without due process — including immigrants with legal status — and in light of President Trump's chilling admission that he plans to target American citizens, or 'home growns,' next.' Gabe Lezra, policy and advocacy director at State Democracy Defenders Action, told The Independent that what's happening 'should horrify every American.' 'The Trump–Musk regime sold DOGE to the American people as a way to cut costs and streamline government. What they actually created was Big Brother,' Lezra said. 'This isn't just about giving bad actors in our own government access to deeply personal data – like your party registration, charitable givings, medical history, citizenship status, and financial records. It's also because we cannot have confidence that DOGE can keep this database safe–particularly because malicious foreign actors will immediately make this database their number one target,' he added. DOGE claims it has saved American taxpayers $160 billion so far, but figures on its website has been dogged by mistakes. Chaos has followed the newly-formed team headed by Musk as DOGE dismantled and shuttered agencies across the federal government. The billionaire at one point was so hands on that he mandated federal employees email the Office of Personnel Management five accomplishments every week as a 'pulse check.' Some agency heads ignored him. Now DOGE is turning its attention to the administration's deportation efforts as Trump continues to push his sweeping anti-immigration agenda. But Musk's involvement in the efforts appears to be slowing down as he announced plans to step back next week because of his stumbling Tesla revenue. The future of DOGE is in doubt as Musk's role is reduced, but experts, but critics said the damage is done. 'Even if Musk is here less, Musk-ism is still with us,' Gilbert said. 'Policies and practices that they've put in place will continue.'
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Musk's team started by searching for cost-savings in federal government. Today they are DOGE the immigrant hunters
What was first sold to the American people as a cost-cutting mission to 'eliminate waste' and save taxpayer money, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has morphed into seeking immigration data, experts and campaigners say. Musk's so-called DOGE group has moved at breakneck speed since the billionaire first mused about it in August 2024, shortly after endorsing Donald Trump for president. 'I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission,' Musk pitched to Trump during the conversation on X Spaces last summer. Its aim, he said, would be to ensure taxpayer money is spent 'in a good way.' 'And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission,' Musk offered. Since then, DOGE has overseen some of the 280,000 layoffs across 27 government agencies and pursued immigration-related data across departments, including Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. Its latest data mining conquest is the Justice Department, where DOGE officials have accessed a sensitive system containing detailed information about immigrants' interactions with the U.S. government. The system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review's Courts and Appeals System, contains records dating to at least the 1990s on millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, including addresses, case histories, court testimony and confidential interviews from asylum seekers, the Washington Post first reported. 'The initial mission, as stated, was to cut waste and eliminate fraud and abuse,' Lisa Gilbert, co-president of consumer rights group Public Citizen, which is involved in several lawsuits against the Trump administration, told The Independent. 'And very quickly it became clear that that was not their goal.' 'I don't think anyone could have predicted the pace and destructive nature of Elon Musk–helmed, conflict-ridden, tech-bro-filled, density storming into the federal government,' Gibert added. 'It's been unprecedented and hugely damaging, and it will take a long time for the government to recover.' Musk's team is using the highly sensitive data it has gathered to build a 'master database' at the Department of Homeland Security that could be used to 'track and surveil' undocumented immigrants, WIRED reported last week. Data sharing between government agencies is nothing new, but it has been limited to specific purposes. 'DHS has had access to certain components of Department of Justice information through an interagency scheduling tool, which allowed border agents to pull court dates to put on charging documents, or evidence for deportation proceedings,' Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, explained. 'What seems to be new, if reporting is accurate, is [DOGE's] access to information contained in the actual case files,' she told The Independent. Bush-Joseph emphasized the incredibly sensitive nature of the files, which in some cases will contain information to do with 'terrible violence and persecution' that some immigrants have suffered. 'The opaqueness of DOGE's data efforts should give Americans pause because it is not simply about creating efficiency,' global security and cyber expert Nicholas Reese, an adjunct instructor at NYU's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, added. 'It is also about security and building trust because this is not nameless and faceless data.' The Justice Department declined to comment when approached by The Independent. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security were also contacted for comment. Gerald Connolly, ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to the Social Security Administration's office of the inspector general last week about a whistleblower who told them that DOGE is building the 'master database,' consisting of sensitive data. The Committee 'received reports about troubling, fumbling efforts by DOGE to combine sensitive information held by SSA, the IRS, HHS, and other agencies into a singlecross-agency master database,' Connolly's letter said. 'I am concerned that DOGE is moving personal information across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act or related laws, such that the American people are wholly unaware their data is being manipulated in this way.' A senior Homeland Security official, meanwhile, told WIRED that DOGE is 'trying to amass a huge amount of data' and 'it has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending.' Connolly told The Independent that the way in which DOGE is operating, particularly with accessing immigration data, is deeply 'alarming.' 'The Trump-Musk Administration is infiltrating agencies and weaponizing the information they steal to target and attack America's immigrant communities,' Connolly said. 'DOGE's dystopian demand for the sensitive, personal data of millions of Americans and immigrants is alarming, especially as this Administration abducts and disappears people off our streets without due process — including immigrants with legal status — and in light of President Trump's chilling admission that he plans to target American citizens, or 'home growns,' next.' Gabe Lezra, policy and advocacy director at State Democracy Defenders Action, told The Independent that what's happening 'should horrify every American.' 'The Trump–Musk regime sold DOGE to the American people as a way to cut costs and streamline government. What they actually created was Big Brother,' Lezra said. 'This isn't just about giving bad actors in our own government access to deeply personal data – like your party registration, charitable givings, medical history, citizenship status, and financial records. It's also because we cannot have confidence that DOGE can keep this database safe–particularly because malicious foreign actors will immediately make this database their number one target,' he added. DOGE claims it has saved American taxpayers $160 billion so far, but figures on its website has been dogged by mistakes. Chaos has followed the newly-formed team headed by Musk as DOGE dismantled and shuttered agencies across the federal government. The billionaire at one point was so hands on that he mandated federal employees email the Office of Personnel Management five accomplishments every week as a 'pulse check.' Some agency heads ignored him. Now DOGE is turning its attention to the administration's deportation efforts as Trump continues to push his sweeping anti-immigration agenda. But Musk's involvement in the efforts appears to be slowing down as he announced plans to step back next week because of his stumbling Tesla revenue. The future of DOGE is in doubt as Musk's role is reduced, but experts, but critics said the damage is done. 'Even if Musk is here less, Musk-ism is still with us,' Gilbert said. 'Policies and practices that they've put in place will continue.'
The Independent
26-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Musk's team started by searching for cost-savings in federal government. Today they are DOGE the immigrant hunters
What was first sold to the American people as a cost-cutting mission to 'eliminate waste' and save taxpayer money, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has morphed into seeking immigration data, experts and campaigners say. Musk's so-called DOGE group has moved at breakneck speed since the billionaire first mused about it in August 2024, shortly after endorsing Donald Trump for president. 'I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission,' Musk pitched to Trump during the conversation on X Spaces last summer. Its aim, he said, would be to ensure taxpayer money is spent 'in a good way.' 'And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission,' Musk offered. Since then, DOGE has overseen some of the 280,000 layoffs across 27 government agencies and pursued immigration-related data across departments, including Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. Its latest data mining conquest is the Justice Department, where DOGE officials have accessed a sensitive system containing detailed information about immigrants' interactions with the U.S. government. The system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review's Courts and Appeals System, contains records dating to at least the 1990s on millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, including addresses, case histories, court testimony and confidential interviews from asylum seekers, the Washington Post first reported. 'The initial mission, as stated, was to cut waste and eliminate fraud and abuse,' Lisa Gilbert, co-president of consumer rights group Public Citizen, which is involved in several lawsuits against the Trump administration, told The Independent. 'And very quickly it became clear that that was not their goal.' 'I don't think anyone could have predicted the pace and destructive nature of Elon Musk–helmed, conflict-ridden, tech-bro-filled, density storming into the federal government,' Gibert added. 'It's been unprecedented and hugely damaging, and it will take a long time for the government to recover.' Musk's team is using the highly sensitive data it has gathered to build a 'master database' at the Department of Homeland Security that could be used to 'track and surveil' undocumented immigrants, WIRED reported last week. Data sharing between government agencies is nothing new, but it has been limited to specific purposes. 'DHS has had access to certain components of Department of Justice information through an interagency scheduling tool, which allowed border agents to pull court dates to put on charging documents, or evidence for deportation proceedings,' Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, explained. 'What seems to be new, if reporting is accurate, is [DOGE's] access to information contained in the actual case files,' she told The Independent. Bush-Joseph emphasized the incredibly sensitive nature of the files, which in some cases will contain information to do with 'terrible violence and persecution' that some immigrants have suffered. 'The opaqueness of DOGE's data efforts should give Americans pause because it is not simply about creating efficiency,' global security and cyber expert Nicholas Reese, an adjunct instructor at NYU's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, added. 'It is also about security and building trust because this is not nameless and faceless data.' The Justice Department declined to comment when approached by The Independent. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security were also contacted for comment. Gerald Connolly, ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to the Social Security Administration's office of the inspector general last week about a whistleblower who told them that DOGE is building the 'master database,' consisting of sensitive data. The Committee 'received reports about troubling, fumbling efforts by DOGE to combine sensitive information held by SSA, the IRS, HHS, and other agencies into a single cross-agency master database,' Connolly's letter said. 'I am concerned that DOGE is moving personal information across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act or related laws, such that the American people are wholly unaware their data is being manipulated in this way.' A senior Homeland Security official, meanwhile, told WIRED that DOGE is 'trying to amass a huge amount of data' and 'it has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending.' Connolly told The Independent that the way in which DOGE is operating, particularly with accessing immigration data, is deeply 'alarming.' 'The Trump-Musk Administration is infiltrating agencies and weaponizing the information they steal to target and attack America's immigrant communities,' Connolly said. 'DOGE's dystopian demand for the sensitive, personal data of millions of Americans and immigrants is alarming, especially as this Administration abducts and disappears people off our streets without due process — including immigrants with legal status — and in light of President Trump's chilling admission that he plans to target American citizens, or 'home growns,' next.' Gabe Lezra, policy and advocacy director at State Democracy Defenders Action, told The Independent that what's happening 'should horrify every American.' 'The Trump–Musk regime sold DOGE to the American people as a way to cut costs and streamline government. What they actually created was Big Brother,' Lezra said. 'This isn't just about giving bad actors in our own government access to deeply personal data – like your party registration, charitable givings, medical history, citizenship status, and financial records. It's also because we cannot have confidence that DOGE can keep this database safe–particularly because malicious foreign actors will immediately make this database their number one target,' he added. DOGE claims it has saved American taxpayers $160 billion so far, but figures on its website has been dogged by mistakes. Chaos has followed the newly-formed team headed by Musk as DOGE dismantled and shuttered agencies across the federal government. The billionaire at one point was so hands on that he mandated federal employees email the Office of Personnel Management five accomplishments every week as a 'pulse check.' Some agency heads ignored him. Now DOGE is turning its attention to the administration's deportation efforts as Trump continues to push his sweeping anti-immigration agenda. But Musk's involvement in the efforts appears to be slowing down as he announced plans to step back next week because of his stumbling Tesla revenue. The future of DOGE is in doubt as Musk's role is reduced, but experts, but critics said the damage is done. 'Even if Musk is here less, Musk-ism is still with us,' Gilbert said. 'Policies and practices that they've put in place will continue.'
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Musk's DOGE Goons Granted Access to Secret Data on Millions of Immigrants
Pam Bondi's Justice Department has agreed to give a handful of Elon Musk's DOGE 'advisers' access to a system containing detailed private records on millions of immigrants dating back to the 1990s. The Executive Office for Immigration Review's Courts and Appeals System, or ECAS, holds vast, comprehensive records of immigrants' personal information, as well as every interaction they've had with the U.S. government. Senior DOJ officials greenlit DOGE access to the ECAS system on Friday, The Washington Post reported. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a White House office headed by President Donald Trump's megadonor Musk, has been digging into confidential data systems across the federal government in an attempt to speed up the administration's deportations. DOJ staff members were instructed to prepare ECAS accounts for Marko Elez, the DOGE minion who resigned over racist social media posts before being rehired, as well as former hedge fund staffer Adam Hoffman. Payton Rehling and Jon Koval, who work at a private-equity firm tied to Musk, are also being given access, according to the Post. Contacted by the Post, the department declined to say why the access was sought and granted. The DOGE team did not respond to the paper's requests for comment. But the move comes as DOGE has been forcing its way into federal databases containing private information about immigrants—often over the objections of career civil servants. In a major policy shift, the Internal Revenue Service agreed this month to share taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security in an attempt to hunt down immigrants who are undocumented but nevertheless pay taxes. IRS lawyers had warned the move was potentially illegal, but Treasury Department officials bypassed the IRS's acting commissioner, Melanie Krause, to make the DHS deal. Krause quit in response, making her the third IRS chief to leave the agency in three months. Last week, DOGE members embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement sought private Medicare data—including personal health information and addresses—to target people for deportation. DOGE also demanded the Social Security Administration list more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead to try to force them to leave the country. Again, senior staffers warned the plan was likely illegal, and one was physically dragged out of his office after he voiced his concerns. Dozens of 'financially dead' immigrants later showed up at Social Security offices to prove they were very much alive, forcing the agency to resurrect them. DOGE's move into the ECAS system 'really hearkens to what we're seeing with Social Security, with the IRS, with data that was shared with an expectation of privacy,' Lynn Damiano Pearson, a senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, told the Post. The database contains immigrants' names, family and attorney information, addresses, court testimony, interactions with law enforcement, and motor vehicle records. For asylum seekers, the records include confidential interviews and testimony that could put their lives at risk, an unnamed official told the Post. For undocumented aliens, the ECAS records their alien registration number. Immigration attorneys told the Post the information is usually only accessible to immigrants and their lawyers. A small number of Homeland Security staff also sometimes gain access during proceedings such as immigration court appeals. Accessing the system's confidential information about court proceedings could jeopardize privacy protections both for citizens and non-citizens alike, Pearson told the Post.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's DOGE Gets Its Hands on Data on Millions of Immigrants
Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department have given DOGE access to a system that contains sensitive data on millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, including their addresses and detailed case histories, according to The Washington Post. The Executive Office for Immigration Review's Courts and Appeals System, or ECAS, keeps records of everyone who's been in the U.S. immigration system. Now six DOGE employees have permission to stick their hands in it. DOGE has meddled in multiple different federal databases in an effort to carry out Trump's immigration crackdown. ICE is using a Medicare database to locate undocumented immigrants. The Social Security Administration is trying to force immigrants to self-deport by falsely labeling 6,000 as dead. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to prevent immigrants in mixed-status households from receiving government benefits, and the IRS is sharing migrant tax information with the Department of Homeland Security. 'It really hearkens to what we're seeing with Social Security, with the IRS, with data that was shared with an expectation of privacy, ' National Immigration Law Center senior staff attorney Lynn Damiano Pearson told the Post. She went on to note that DOGE's access to ECAS would have 'very concerning impacts for immigrants, even ones who have specifically tried to comply with government policies and do everything right, so to speak.'
