From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Read more
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency has reportedly received permission from the Justice Department to access a sensitive system containing detailed information about immigrants’ interactions with the U.S. government.
The system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Courts and Appeals System, contains records dating back at least to the 1990s on millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, including addresses, case histories, court testimony, and confidential interviews from asylum seekers.
DOGE was given permission on Friday to access the system, The Washington Post reports.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the Post’s reporting.
DOGE has pursued and used immigration-related data across U.S. agencies including the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Internal Revenue Service. It has also reportedly been granted access to sensitive Labor Department data on immigrants and farm workers.
The DOGE effort reportedly prompted the acting chief of the IRS to resign earlier this month after the agency struck a deal to share undocumented immigrants’ taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security.
DOGE reportedly combined multi-agency immigration data into the larger Department of Homeland Security system (AFP via Getty Images)
The initiative persuaded the Social Security Administration to add thousands of immigrants to the agency’s “death file” to cut them off from legal and financial resources and pressure them into self-deporting, even though it was known they weren’t actually dead.
DOGE is reportedly working with the Department of Homeland Security to build a master database to track and surveil undocumented immigrants, incorporating information obtained from the IRS, Social Security Administration, and other government agencies, according to WIRED.
“They are trying to amass a huge amount of data,” a senior Homeland Security official told the outlet. “It has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending … They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS as well as voter data.”
On Monday, a federal judge largely blocked Social Security staffers working with DOGE from accessing huge swathes of sensitive data in that system.