Then again, we have ICE shooting American citizens in the streets, so I guess the law is whatever they decide it is, not least because our legislative branch is uninterested in laws.
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1191...
Edit: cael450 has already offered a specific example of this threat vector: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758387
Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to. Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
They’re single mindedly looking for undocumented immigrants to deport.
Why are you presuming this? There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.
> Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
If it is being honest about it's intention, yes. I think we have seen an absolute mountain of evidence that this administration does "audits" as massive data collection waves to suit any and every purpose they want, though.
If this was about fixing things being done incorrectly, DHHS should be doing the audit, not DHS. Perhaps the latter doesn't understand the difference between the two, though, not noticing they're missing an H in their abbreviation.
Isn't the point of this data so that they can uncover exactly that? It'd be silly to say you're not allowed to look for evidence of anything unless you already have evidence of it. Also, the qualifier "in any widespread fashion" is weasel words. It makes me think you already know it is happening, and the only remaining question is to what scale.
And as the GP pointed out, it makes no sense to put the president's paramilitary agency¹ in charge of such an audit, rather than qualified auditors, perhaps from the HHS² OIG³.
1. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_He...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Inspector_General_(U...
How would this even work? You can’t just start billing things to Medicaid if you’re ineligible for it. That would be like you deciding to bill United Healthcare for something despite not being a customer. How is this hypothetical fraud supposed to work? What am I missing?
> Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid. They’re trying to use records to find people to detain and deport which is an orthogonal dataset.
The only plausible explanation is that they’re using medical records as an additional source of data on people who live in houses that they’re raiding or looking at.
Which is insane. Imagine police rolling up to your front door on suspicion of something and loading up a system which has your medical records.
Before BBB July 4, Medicare covered the following groups:
- Refugees
- Asylum seekers
- Immigration parolees
- TPS holders
- DACA recipients
Under the Trump administration, the following groups are now considered illegal aliens:
- Asylum seekers with pending claims or those whose claims were denied
- Immigration parolees
- Certain categories of TPS holders (for example South Sudanese TPS ended Jan 6 2026 so all people under that protection are ordered to leave)
- Certain categories of DACA recipients
And the above people are probably registered for medicare with full name and address.
Genuinely curious if they've published this information.
A robotics engineer from Germany was forcibly deported a few months back because ICE were waiting for him at the immigration office when he went to visit to further the application.