Court OKs ICE Use of Medicaid Records

The Trump administration may begin providing Immigration and Customs Enforcement with location information about illegal immigrants receiving public health insurance benefits starting next month, according to a court judge’s ruling on Monday.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, which permits ICE to utilize Medicaid data in deportation cases starting on January 6, is a win for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program. Due to a legal challenge by blue states, the agency has been prevented from doing so for months.

Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, and twenty-one of his Democratic colleagues, who filed a lawsuit in July to stop the Trump administration from targeting immigrants using Medicaid data from the Department of Health and Human Services, have suffered a serious blow as a result of the ruling.

Federal Medicaid programs do not accept undocumented immigrants; however, California and other blue states, including Illinois, Colorado, New York, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., permit certain individuals to obtain state-funded benefits through their Medicaid implementation programs regardless of their immigration status.

The six categories of “basic” personal information included by Chhabria’s ruling are citizenship, immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID. ICE cannot acquire personal data gathered from other immigrants using Medicaid because the Trump administration is only permitted to disclose Medicaid data on those who are in the country illegally.

Source: Politico