Social Security Overseer Refused to Help Weed Migrants Out of the System, Then Security Showed Up
Despite official action to essentially wipe migrants out of the Social Security system, a new report said one bureaucrat refused to go along.
Greg Pearre, a manager who according to The Washington Post oversaw technology experts, was refusing to put names of migrants into what’s known as the “death master file,” which is usually used for Social Security recipients who have died.
As a result, on Thursday, security guards arrived at Pearre’s office at Social Security Administration headquarters in Woodlawn, Maryland, and escorted him out.
As with all Trump administration innovations, blocking access to migrants’ Social Security numbers has its critics.
“This is an unprecedented step,” Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in response.
“The administration seems to basically be saying they have the right to essentially declare people equivalent to dead who have not died. That’s a hard concept to believe, but it brings enormous risks and consequences,” he said.
But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said removing illegal immigrants needs to be done.
She said putting migrants in programs that have been terminated into the death file so their Social Security numbers will be rejected shows that “the Trump Administration is protecting lawful American citizens and their hard-earned Social Security benefits, and ensuring illegal immigrants will no longer receive such economic entitlements.”
“Anyone who disagrees with the common sense policies of this Administration can find a new job,” she said.
According to The New York Times, immigrants who entered through Biden administration initiatives since ended by the Trump administration are the subjects of the effort.
The new approach targets about 1.4 million people who participated in two programs — the so-called CNVH program that opened the door for 500,000 migrants from Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti, and the CBP One app that gave 900,000 migrants work permits so they could enter the U.S. and remain.
The Trump administration has ended those programs and urged participants to self-deport.
The first migrants to be put in the death master file included about 6,100 people who were in those programs, the Post and Times each reported. Thursday, another 102 names were added, the Post reported.
Leland Dudek, the Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner, sent staff members an email saying the “financial lives” of the migrants on the list would be “terminated,” the Times reported.
In a memo to Dudek on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the plan would “prevent suspected terrorists who are here illegally” from having “privileges reserved for those with lawful status.”
A White House official told the Post that of those migrants, almost 1,000 are collecting Medicaid benefits, 41 are on unemployment, and 22 have received student loans.
“They have no right to be in the country,” the official said.
Elizabeth Huston, a White House representative, told the Times that using Social Security data will help achieve President Donald Trump’s immigration goals.
“President Trump promised mass deportations, and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,” she said in a statement. “He is delivering on his promise he made to the American people.”
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