Original Date Announced

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is purposely misclassifying certain living immigrants as dead--and effectively terminating their Social Security numbers--to encourage them to "self-deport." The Social Security Administration (SSA) added to its death database earlier this week more than 6,300 immigrants whose legal statuses had been revoked, thereby classifying them as dead people who should no longer receive benefits. The initial names added are limited to individuals alleged by the administration to be convicted criminals and “suspected terrorists,” but officials said the effort could broaden to include undocumented immigrants.

Trump 2.0 [ID #1680]

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2025.04.12 Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead - Washington Post

The Washington Post reports that a senior SSA executive was terminated after objecting to the Trump administration’s misclassification strategy.

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2025.04.18 Reported: Immigrants prove they are alive, forcing Social Security to undo death label - Washington Post

The Washington Post reports that nearly three dozen immigrants who had falsely been labeled as dead have been reinstated into the Social Security system after showing up at field offices to prove they are alive.

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2025.07.01 Reported: Social Security Backs Off Listing Living Migrants as Dead - New York Times

New York Times reports that the Social Security Administration is backing off its policy of misclassifying thousands of living immigrants as dead to prompt self-deportation. Instead, the agency has listed approximately 6,300 noncitizens as "unverified" in the system that is typically used by financial institutions to check Social Security Numbers (SSNs) provided by individuals.

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2025.07.17 SSA FOIA Response

Social Security Administration provided an interim response to a FOIA request regarding the Death Master File policy described above noting that "in early June 2025, the agency updated its records so this population would no longer appear as deceased in agency records."

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2026.06.03 Protected Whistleblower Disclosure - DOGE and DHS officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead

Whistleblower Jeremiah Schofield, a former SSA executive, alleges that DHS transmitted to the SSA in late April 2025 a second list of 2.7 million individuals to be marked as deceased. Schofield's 49-page disclosure provides details on the plan and related communications among DHS, DOGE, and SSA officials. In one meeting, Schofield claims, a DOGE member acknowledged that DHS's aim was to force these immigrants to self-deport or to be detained by ICE when they went to SSA offices to seek help. Schofield states that, to his knowledge, SSA had not marked as deceased the 2.7 million people on DHS's list by the time he left the agency in October 2025.

The whistleblower disclosure was publicized by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who sent letters to the SSA demanding answers about the plan.