Lawfare Archive: Social Security, the ‘Death Master File,’ and Immigration Enforcement

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of the Trump administration's use of the Death Master File for immigration enforcement.

From May 2, 2025: As the Trump administration seeks to escalate its immigration crackdown, the government has turned to a concerning source of information for data on immigrants: the Social Security Administration.  Reports   indicate  that Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative and the Department of Homeland Security successfully pushed Social Security officials to provide access to what’s commonly known as the “Death Master File,” allowing the government to mark living immigrants as dead in the Social Security Administration’s systems. The goal, according to press reports, is to make the lives of these individuals so difficult that they choose to leave the country.  What exactly is the Death Master File, and why is this strategy so alarming? To understand,  Lawfare  Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic spoke to Kathleen Romig, Director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the center. They explained the unsettling implications of tinkering with the Death Master File and situated these efforts within the broader scope of the Trump administration—and DOGE’s—repeated attacks on…

People in this episode

Host: Quinta Jurecic

Guests: Kathleen Romig, Devin O’Connor

Topics covered

• immigration enforcement
• Social Security
• Death Master File
• Trump administration
• data privacy
• policy implications

Keywords

• immigration
• Social Security
• Death Master File
• Trump administration
• policy
• data access
• DHS
• Elon Musk

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Trump administration, DOGE initiative

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