The Trump administration has taken steps to label over 6,000 living immigrants as deceased, resulting in the cancellation of their social security numbers and effectively eliminating their capacity to work or receive benefits, aiming to pressure them to leave the country, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
This decision will significantly impede those impacted from accessing banks and other essential services that require social security numbers. It’s part of a larger initiative by Donald Trump to intensify enforcement against immigrants who were permitted to enter and remain temporarily in the United States under programs established by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
The Trump administration is transferring the names and legally issued social security numbers of these immigrants to a database typically utilized by federal officials to track deceased individuals, according to the two sources who requested anonymity as the plans had not been publicly disclosed.
Officials indicated that revoking the immigrants’ social security numbers will sever their access to numerous financial services and motivate them to “self-deport” back to their home countries. A social security number is a unique nine-digit identifier issued by the federal government to US citizens, permanent residents, and temporary working residents, utilized for various official and identification purposes, including the tracking of earnings and contributions to the social security system which provides state pensions upon retirement.
It remains unclear how the selection of the 6,000+ immigrants was conducted. However, the Trump administration has targeted individuals residing temporarily under programs established during the Biden administration, including over 900,000 immigrants who entered using the CBP One app.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded the legal status of immigrants who utilized that app, who had generally been permitted to remain in the US for two years with work authorization under presidential parole authority during Biden’s administration and are now expected to leave the country.
In a related development, a federal judge announced on Thursday that she would prevent the Trump administration from mandating that hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans with temporary legal status leave the nation later this month.
A representative from the Social Security Administration did not respond to inquiries concerning the classification of living immigrants as deceased. The agency maintains the most comprehensive federal database of individuals who have died, containing over 142 million records dating back to 1899.
The Privacy Act permits the Social Security Administration to share information with law enforcement under limited conditions, including situations involving violent crimes or other criminal activities.
This week, the DHS and the Treasury Department reached an agreement that will enable the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to share immigrants’ tax information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify and deport individuals viewed as illegally residing in the US. This agreement allows ICE to send names and addresses of purportedly undocumented immigrants to the IRS for cross-checking against tax records.
The current acting IRS commissioner, Melanie Krause, who had been in the role since February, resigned due to this deal.
In March, a federal judge temporarily halted a team led by billionaire Elon Musk, tasked with cutting federal jobs and downsizing the government, from accessing social security systems containing personal information about millions of Americans, characterizing their operation there as a “fishing expedition.”
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group that has legally contested various initiatives by the Trump administration, indicated that her organization is likely to pursue legal action regarding the social security number issue as further details emerge.
“This president continues to engage in unlawful behavior, violating the law and misusing our systems of checks and balances,” Perryman stated.
