WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the U.S., the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
The report cited an agreement signed on Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The deal has not been made public yet, according to the report. Those agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Medicaid health program is jointly funded by the federal government and states. Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for Medicaid.
The reported access to the personal data of Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, would mark an escalation in the hardline immigration policies of the Trump administration and also raise privacy concerns.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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