Washington, DC — In ongoing installments of America’s Voice “This is What Mass Deportation Looks Like,” we highlight the Trump administration’s efforts to turbocharge mass deportations and we connect the dots between various developments that, together, capture the scale of Trump’s ambitions and the larger resultant damage on all Americans.
In recent days, we’ve seen how the Trump White House and Members of Congress are seeking to dramatically scale up funding for immigration enforcement – at the cost of Americans’ health and economic security — and are ensnaring U.S. citizens in the process. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports, “Justice Dept. Agrees to Allow DOGE Access Sensitive Immigration Case Data” – news that should be viewed alongside revelations about IRS information-sharing to enable immigration enforcement and misuse of a Social Security Administration database to crack down on immigrants as reminders how the administration is, in the Post’s words, seeking “to claw deeper into vast troves of federal data to advance the president’s aggressive deportation efforts.” Of note, DOGE’s litany of errors in their short existence – such as sending notices telling U.S. citizens to deport – underscores the near certainty they will continue to make mistakes and compound the chaos and costs inherent to the mass deportation agenda.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“This is what mass deportation looks like – making every appendage of our federal government into a tool for unsparing, costly, chaotic, and unpopular deportations of long-settled immigrants who are deeply rooted in American families and communities. These latest revelations are a harsh testament to the scope of this administration’s efforts to not just intrude on the lives of immigrants but violate the privacy of every American. Just as troubling is the complete silence from leading lawmakers with supposed concerns about the power of the state and the federal government prying into American families’ lives and sensitive information.”
Below, find key excerpts from the Washington Post story, “Justice Dept. Agrees to Allow DOGE Access Sensitive Immigration Case Data”:
“Representatives of the U.S. DOGE Service have received permission to access a highly sensitive Justice Department system that contains information including the addresses and case histories of millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The system — the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Courts and Appeals System, or ECAS — is used to store records of immigrants who have interacted with the U.S. immigration system, detailing their name, addresses, previous immigration-court testimony, and any history of engagement with law enforcement, among other things.
… The push to access the Justice Department system is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to claw deeper into vast troves of federal data to advance the president’s aggressive deportation efforts.
Last week, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who are working with DOGE asked to use a sensitive Medicare database, including personal health information and addresses, to help ICE locate people the administration does not think are in the country legally.
At DOGE’s behest, the Social Security Administration listed more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead in a bid to make them self-deport, overriding the objections of career staff. At the IRS, officials agreed this month to share data with the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting that the administration may want to use tax information to find as many as 7 million people suspected of being in the country illegally.
And at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, DOGE staffers are looking to identify and kick out mixed-status households, vowing to ensure that undocumented immigrants do not benefit from public housing programs even if they live with citizens…”
