A data sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which was designed for ICE to receive the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients, was published as part of a lawsuit last year, with the public now able to see the exact text of that unprecedented agreement.

Last year, Freedom of the Press Foundation and 404 Media sued DHS for a copy of the agreement after the agency failed to turn it over in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. A U.S. attorney working on that case then flagged to our counsel that the document had been released in a separate lawsuit various states brought against the Department of Health and Human Services and DHS.

The full text of the agreement also shows the data promised to ICE included more granular data than previously reported, such as patients’ banking “routing number, account type, account number.”

“Access to this information will allow ICE to receive information concerning the identity and location of aliens in the United States, such as address, telephone number, banking information (routing number, account type, account number), email address, internet protocol (IP) addresses, or other information relevant to identifying and locating aliens in the United States,” the agreement reads.

💡
Do you know anything else about this data sharing? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

The existence of the data sharing agreement was reported at the time by the Associated Press and later WIRED. 404 Media has uploaded a copy here. At the end of December, a judge ruled that the Trump administration could resume sharing much of the data after it had been blocked from doing so, Politico reported. That means ICE can use Medicaid data in deportation cases starting Tuesday, Politico added.

Under a section called “description of the data that may be disclosed,” the agreement says that data includes “Medicaid recipients: Name, address, assigned Medicaid identification number, social security number (SSN), date of birth, sex, phone number, locality, ethnicity and race.” The data allowed to be given to ICE under the new ruling is slightly narrower than that, and includes citizenship, immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID, and is limited to people living unlawfully in the U.S., Politico reported.

In June the Associated Press reported Medicaid officials unsuccessfully fought to block the transfer of data related to millions of Medicaid enrollees from California, Illinois, Washington state, and Washington D.C. Emails showed two top advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the data transfer and CMS officials had 54 minutes to comply, the Associated Press added. At the time, the exact purpose of the data sharing was not known. Then the Associated Press reported on the agreement itself that said the sharing was for ICE to locate aliens in the country.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
CMS did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told 404 Media in a statement, “President Trump consistently promised to protect Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. To keep that promise after Joe Biden flooded our country with tens of millions of illegal aliens CMS and DHS are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans.” Undocumented immigrants do not have access to federally funded healthcare coverage, including Medicaid, according to the non-partisan, non-profit organization American Immigration Council. Federal law mandates that hospitals provide emergency care regardless of the person’s immigration status, the organization says.

The agreement is part of a much wider practice of data sharing across the second Trump administration and its mass deportation effort. The IRS has funneled data to ICE; in November a court blocked that data sharing. This month the New York Times revealed the TSA was sharing multiple lists of people a week with ICE so immigration authorities could then detain them at airports.

Correction: due to an editing error, this article previously said we sued DHS earlier this year. It was last year. The copy has been updated to reflect this.

Court blocks IRS from sharing taxpayer addresses with ICE

A federal judge sided with plaintiffs who argued that the data-sharing pact violated privacy laws, putting immigrants at risk of their information being “impermissibly used” by ICE.

^{Matt Bracken (FedScoop)}

404 Media

2025-10-01 14:25:57

404 Media and Freedom of the Press Foundation Sue DHS

Last week Freedom of the Press Foundation and 404 Media filed a lawsuit against the multiple parts of the U.S. government demanding they hand over a copy of an agreement that shares the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients with ICE. The data sharing marked a watershed moment for ICE and its access to highly sensitive data that is ordinarily siloed off from the agency. We believe it’s important for the public to see this unprecedented data sharing agreement for themselves.

As the Associated Press wrote when it first reported on the data sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agreement will give ICE the ability to find “the location of aliens.” The data shared includes home addresses and ethnicities, according to the Associated Press.

💡
Do you know anything else about this data sharing agreement? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

Both Freedom of the Press Foundation and 404 Media filed similar Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with DHS and CMS seeking a copy of the agreement. Neither agency provided the requested records in time, so we have now filed the lawsuit. In 404 Media’s case, CMS acknowledged the request but has not provided the records, and DHS did not even acknowledge the request at all.

404 Media’s request asked for a copy of the specific agreement, and if the agencies were unable to locate it, to alternatively provide copies of all agreements between DHS and CMS from this year.

“Despite having received the FOIA requests, and despite their obligations under the law, Defendants have failed to notify Plaintiffs of the scope of documents that they will produce or the scope of documents that they plan to withhold in response to the FOIA requests,” the lawsuit reads.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
Freedom of the Press Foundation is a non-profit organization that monitors press freedom issues in the U.S. and trains journalists on how to keep themselves and their sources safe. It regularly sues the U.S. government for access to records.

The data sharing agreement is just one of a growing list of ways that ICE is sourcing highly sensitive, and sometimes legally protected, information as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. ProPublica reported on the vast system the IRS is building to share millions of taxpayers’ data with ICE. 404 Media previously reported ICE has gained access to ISO Claimsearch, a massive insurance and medical bill database to find deportation targets. The database is nearly all encompassing and contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills.

Separately, 404 Media filed a lawsuit against ICE in September for access to the agency’s $2 million spyware contract.

If you want to support this work, become a paid subscriber here. If you would like to make a larger, tax deductible donation, please email us at donate@404media.co.

Membership

404 Media is a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.

^{Outpost Staff (404 Media)}