CNN
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The Division of Homeland Safety requested the Social Safety Administration to enter greater than 6,000 names of immigrants into its database used to trace useless folks, based on a DHS official with information of the choice.
The transfer will successfully financially starve the immigrants, reducing off their capacity to legally work within the nation, obtain numerous authorities advantages and entry monetary providers like credit score and financial institution accounts. The Trump administration is hoping it is going to drive them to self-deport, based on the official. It’s all part of the administration’s efforts to crack down on migrants within the nation.
The transfer, first reported by The New York Occasions, targets immigrants who’ve Social Safety numbers and should have entered america below applications which have ended, just like the Biden administration’s short-term work applications.
A White Home official advised CNN the immigrants in query are quickly paroled on the fear watchlist or have FBI felony information and are ineligible to obtain Social Safety advantages. However the official didn’t present any additional proof to help that declare. “Efficient April 8, 2025, CBP terminated parole for all these folks with written discover to every of them,” the official mentioned.
“Below President Trump’s management, the federal government is lastly doing what it ought to have all alongside: sharing info throughout the federal authorities to resolve issues,” a Division of Homeland Safety spokesperson mentioned in a press release to CNN. “Info sharing throughout companies is important to determine who’s in our nation, together with violent criminals, decide what public security and terror threats might exist, scrub these people from voter rolls, in addition to determine what public advantages these aliens are utilizing at taxpayer expense.”
One other supply with information of actions at SSA tells CNN the DOGE leaders there have now renamed the database beforehand often called the Social Safety Dying Grasp file to the “Ineligible file.”
The announcement drew sharp criticism from the previous SSA commissioner, Martin O’Malley, who served below former President Joe Biden.
“If they’ll, opposite to the legislation and each regulation and with none due course of, mark folks inside SSA’s database useless who legally entered the nation and have been legally required to be issued a piece SSA quantity, then they’ll try this to anyone,” O’Malley advised CNN.
White Home spokeswoman Liz Huston mentioned in a press release: “President Trump promised mass deportations and by eradicating the financial incentive for unlawful aliens to return and keep, we are going to encourage them to self-deport. He’s delivering on his promise he made to the American folks.”
Immigrants obtain Social Safety numbers when they’re approved to work legally within the US. These numbers are essential for them to land employment.
The company, nonetheless, has lately made it harder for immigrants to acquire numbers and playing cards by requiring them to go to area places of work to get the paperwork as an alternative of getting them issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Companies. The change was first reported by Fashionable Info and confirmed to CNN by a former Social Safety official.
Additionally, Elon Musk has claimed with out proof that immigrants are abusing the system and improperly receiving Social Safety numbers. He claimed that Democrats try to make use of this system to lure immigrants and tip voting in favor of their occasion.
Senate Finance Committee rating member, Democrat Ron Wyden whose committee oversees Social Safety mentioned the transfer takes away earned advantages.
“Declaring a Social Safety quantity as useless is sort of unattainable to undo, doubly so now that Elon Musk and DOGE have eviscerated customer support on the company. This motion raises the prospect of the Trump Administration stealing legally earned Social Safety advantages from Americans, additional proof that Trump’s promise to guard Social Safety is a lie.”
CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this report.
