14ymedio, Madrid, 15 April 2025 — There is silence in the White House following the decision by Boston judge Indira Talwani to suspend the cancellation of the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. Hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries feel happy and relieved, but on social networks the most staunch followers of US President Donald Trump are already urging to ignore the judicial measure or dismiss the judge directly.
Elon Musk, head of the Department ofGovernment Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump’s trusted man, has posted a video on X complaining that the “bureaucracy” may have more power than the president. Although it does not indicate what it refers to, many have understood it as a questioning of the judicial decisions that are paralyzing the measures announced by Trump with great fanfare.
The billionaire owner of Tesla and X, among other companies, is behind a move by the Trump administration that is allegedly aimed at pressuring beneficiaries of the Biden Administration’s immigration programs to self-deport. The White House intends, according to The New York Times (NYT), to cancel their social security numbers, which in practice would mean that they no longer have access to essential financial services, the ability to open a bank account or access public benefits.
Now, it will be the migrants with a temporary status granted by Biden who move to that list of presumed dead
The information, published on the weekend, is the result of an investigation by the NYT, which had access to documents and interviews with six people linked to the matter. According to the newspaper, the technique consists in using the “death master file” of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which is used to list the names of those who can no longer be recipients of aid because they have died. Now, it will be the migrants with a temporary status granted by Biden who move to that list of presumed dead.
According to documents consulted by the NYT, 6,300 migrants whose legal status had just been revoked were added to that file last week. The members are, according to the Government, criminals and terrorists, but the initiative could be extended to “people who are in the country without authorization.” In addition, one 13-year-old and seven minors were listed.
Leland Dudek, acting commissioner of the SSA, said in an internal mail that these peoples’ “financial lives” would “end.” The discontent has been such that several senior officials resigned during the week after learning that the tax office would cooperate to locate undocumented migrants.
Dudek, the NYT continues, reached an agreement in February with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to hand over the last known addresses of 98,000 people to the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE). Up to 12 SSA officials insisted to the newspaper that under previous governments, of all political stripes, the information in their hands was protected and not given to ICE unless justified.
“Enforcement of immigration laws is not the responsibility of the Social Security Administration”
“By using Social Security data to exclude migrants, the government is using a widely popular agency that exists to send benefits primarily to American retirees and people with disabilities” to track migrants, which qualifies the role assigned to the body as coercive. In addition, there is a fear that any errors in the database could have fatal repercussions on the financial life of those affected.
“Enforcement of immigration laws is not the responsibility of the Social Security Administration,” said Jason Fichtner, a senior official during George W. Bush’s presidency, who believes that the slightest mistake can have serious consequences for any citizen.
White House spokeswoman Elizabeth Huston believes the opposite is true and that the service is very useful because it “removes the economic incentive” from aid. “We’ll encourage them to self-deport,” she told the NYT, which has received complaints that it’s getting harder and harder to apply for a benefit.
The NYT also explains that the way in which migrants appear on the register has not changed, so they are added with alleged dates of death, according to two close sources. Martin O’Malley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration in the Biden Administration, called the strategy inhumane. “It’s the equivalent of a financial murder.”
The rules state that the SSA can only share information when a person has been charged or convicted of “violent crimes” or to investigate serious fraud. The first Trump administration tried to pressure the SSA to hand over the information for migratory purposes. This time, Dudek has authorized the delivery of the data to ICE, and, allegedly, the aim is to also hand it over to the Department of Homeland Security.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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