## ICE Gains Access to Healthcare Data of Millions of Americans A data sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has allowed ICE to access the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients. The agreement was made public as part of a lawsuit. The data promised to ICE included detailed information such as patients' bank account numbers. Access to this information would allow ICE to receive data relating to the identity and location of individuals in the United States, including addresses, telephone numbers, banking details, email addresses, and IP addresses. ## Agreement Details The agreement specifies that disclosable data includes the name, address, Medicaid identification number, social security number, date of birth, sex, telephone number, locality, ethnicity, and race of Medicaid recipients. A ruling determined that the Trump administration could resume sharing much of the data, allowing ICE to use Medicaid data in deportation cases. Medicaid officials had unsuccessfully sought to block the transfer of data relating to millions of Medicaid enrollees from California, Illinois, Washington, and Washington D.C. ## Reactions The DHS stated that the initiative aims to ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive Medicaid benefits intended for law-abiding Americans. However, the American Immigration Council points out that illegal immigrants do not have access to federally funded healthcare coverage, including Medicaid. This agreement is part of a broader practice of data sharing during the Trump administration. Previously, the IRS had provided data to ICE, but a court blocked that sharing. The TSA was sharing several lists of people weekly with ICE to allow immigration authorities to detain them at airports.