{"id":32149,"date":"2025-07-02T08:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32149\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T08:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:45:12","slug":"california-other-states-sue-over-trump-use-of-immigrants-medicaid-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32149\/","title":{"rendered":"California, other states sue over Trump use of immigrants’ Medicaid data"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it turned over Medicaid data on millions of enrollees to deportation officials last month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleged on Tuesday, saying he and 19 other states\u2019 attorneys general have sued<\/a> over the move. <\/p>\n

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr<\/a>.\u2019s advisers ordered the release of a dataset that includes the private health information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state, and Washington, D.C., to the Department of Homeland Security, The Associated Press first<\/a> reported last month. All of those states allow non-U.S. citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. <\/p>\n

The unusual data sharing of private health information, including addresses, names, social security numbers, immigration status, and claims data for enrollees in those states, was released to deportation officials as they accelerated enforcement efforts across the country. The data could be used to help the Department of Homeland Security locate migrants in its mass deportation campaign, experts said. <\/p>\n

Bonta said the Trump administration\u2019s data release violates federal health privacy protection laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about flouting seven decades of federal law policy and practice that have made it clear that personal healthcare data is confidential and can only be shared in certain narrow circumstances that benefit the public\u2019s health or the Medicaid program,\u201d Bonta said during a news conference on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has sought to arm deportation officials with more data on immigrants. In May, for example, a federal judge<\/a> refused to block the Internal Revenue Service<\/a> from sharing immigrants\u2019 tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help agents locate and detain people living without legal status in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The move to shore up the federal government\u2019s data on immigrant Medicaid enrollees appears to have been set in motion in May, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it would be reviewing some states rolls to ensure federal funds have not been used to pay for coverage for people with \u201cunsatisfactory immigration status.\u201d <\/p>\n

As part of the review, CMS asked California, Washington and Illinois to share details about non-U.S. citizens who have enrolled in their state\u2019s Medicaid program, according to a June 6 memo signed by Medicaid Deputy Director Sara Vitolo that was obtained by the AP. The memo was written by several CMS officials under Vitolo\u2019s supervision, according to sources familiar with the process.<\/p>\n

CMS officials attempted to fight the data sharing request from Homeland Security, saying that to do so would violate federal laws, including the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act of 1974, according to the memo.<\/p>\n

The legal arguments outlined in the memo were not persuasive to Trump appointees at HHS, which oversees the Medicaid agency.<\/p>\n

Four days after the memo was sent, on June 10, HHS officials directed the transfer of \u201cthe data to DHS by 5:30 ET today,\u201d according to email exchanges obtained by AP.<\/p>\n

HHS is \u201caggressively cracking down on states that may be misusing federal Medicaid funds,\u201d agency spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement. The agency has not provided details on DHS\u2019 role in the effort. Nixon also defended the legality of releasing the data to DHS. <\/p>\n

\u201cHHS acted entirely within its legal authority \u2013 and in full compliance with all applicable laws \u2013 to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them,\u201d he said in the statement. <\/p>\n

Dozens of Democratic members of Congress \u2014 in both the House and Senate \u2014 have sent letters<\/a> to the involved agencies, demanding that data sharing cease and that Homeland Security destroy the information it has received so far. \u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it turned over Medicaid data on millions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[16542,26147,2059,276,12785,84,69,57,330,210,1819,1818,409,346,336,50,80,27016,13211,15010,27017,618,3676,61,67,370,132,68,2057,2058,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-32149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-access-to-health-care","10":"tag-andrew-nixon","11":"tag-ca-state-wire","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-dc-wire","14":"tag-district-of-columbia","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-government-programs","18":"tag-health","19":"tag-il-state-wire","20":"tag-illinois","21":"tag-immigration","22":"tag-information-security","23":"tag-lawsuits","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-politics","26":"tag-privacy","27":"tag-rob-bonta","28":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","29":"tag-sara-vitolo","30":"tag-taxes","31":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","32":"tag-u-s-news","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-government","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-wa-state-wire","38":"tag-washington","39":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}