Social security lists 6k+ ‘dead’

Impact of engineering data | Move amounts to financial death of immigrants with legal status, aim to force them to self deport from US

Agencies WASHINGTON

The Trump administration has moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as “dead”, canceling their Social Security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in an effort to get them to leave the country, according to two people familiar with the situation

This move was first reported by The New York Times. The move, equivalent to a financial death, will make it much harder for those affected to use banks or other basic services where Social Security numbers are required, three sources told CBS News .

It’s part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to crack down on immigrants who were allowed to enter and remain temporarily in the United States under programmes instituted by his predecessor, Joe Biden, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

The Trump administration is moving the immigrants’ names and legally obtained Social Security numbers to a database that federal officials normally use to track the deceased, according to the two people familiar with the moves. They spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday night because the plans had not yet been publicly detailed.

The Associated Press quoted officials saying stripping the immigrants of their Social Security numbers will cut them off from many financial services and encourage them to “self-deport” and abandon the  US for their birth countries.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the 6,000-plus immigrants were chosen. But the Trump White House has targeted people in the country temporarily under Biden-era programmes, including more than 900,000 immigrants who entered the  US  using that administration’s CBP One app.

"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. He is delivering on his promise he made to the American people," White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston said.

Martin O'Malley, the former SSA commissioner during the Biden administration, called the move by SSA "illegal on so many scores." "If without due process,  Trump and Musk can unlawfully 'disappear' or 'digitally murder' anyone who legally entered our country, then they can do it to anyone already legally here," he said.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the legal status of the immigrants who used that app. They had generally been allowed to remain in the U.S. for two years with work authorization under presidential parole authority during the Biden era, but are now expected to self-deport.

Meanwhile, a federal judge said Thursday that she was stopping the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month.