John,
In a move that would hand ICE far more personal information to weaponize, the Social Security Administration (SSA) under Donald Trump is proposing a drastic expansion of data sharing with the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database.
Under Stephen Miller’s xenophobic influence and Kristi Noem’s violence-tinged MAGA ideology, ICE has increasingly targeted anyone who doesn’t fit their vision of white Christian nationalism. Expanding Social Security data access would give them even more opportunities to harass, intimidate, and detain people based not on evidence, but on racial profiling.
Feeding additional SSA records into SAVE would put millions at heightened risk of surveillance, wrongful flagging, and data misuse -- and it wouldn’t stop at immigrants. Even legal residents and U.S. citizens could be swept up and misidentified, exposing them to voter purges, monitoring, and aggressive enforcement actions with little or no recourse.
This proposal also undermines public trust in the Social Security system itself. People give their most sensitive personal information to the agency because they rely on it to administer benefits -- not to funnel their data into an enforcement apparatus. For immigrant and mixed-status families who interact with SSA in good faith, this would be a profound betrayal.
But this proposed expansion has not been finalized. Social Security is still accepting public comments until December 12, and we still have the power to stop it.
SAVE already has a documented history of being misused to question the citizenship of eligible voters, escalate surveillance, and facilitate overly broad ICE enforcement. Instead of supporting workers and families, this proposal would turn the Social Security Administration into yet another tool for racial profiling, intimidation, and voter suppression.
Expanding this pipeline of personal data only increases the chances that ICE will continue detaining people indefinitely or transferring them into abusive detention systems, foreign or domestic, without accountability.
We are demanding that Social Security conduct and publicly release a thorough analysis of the civil rights, privacy, and due-process impacts of any SSA–DHS data-sharing practices -- and that it affirm Social Security data will not be used for immigration enforcement or voter purges.
Your voice truly matters. We can still protect privacy, defend civil rights, and stop the Social Security Administration from funneling even more personal data into DHS systems ripe for abuse.
Remember to submit your comments before the deadline of December 12!
Thank you for protecting every person who has personal information in the Social Security system.
- DFA AF Team
