Larson, Neal Condemn ICE Infiltration at Social Security

East Hartford, CT – Today, House Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member John B. Larson (CT-01) and Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard E. Neal (MA-01) released a joint statement following reporting from WIRED that the Trump Administration is instructing Social Security workers to hand over appointment information to ICE: 

“Under this administration, ICE has been transformed into Donald Trump’s secret police force – accountable to nobody. They are killing Americans in our streets, sending masked agents to snatch mothers from their children, and illegally blocking Members of Congress from even visiting their facilities. Today, we were informed that ICE is attempting to infiltrate the Social Security Administration too – using field offices to further round up and detain people, and scaring people out of getting the benefits they need. It was bad enough that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have already used Social Security as a means to get immigrants to ‘self-deport.’ We led the effort to stop them and passed legislation to prevent them from continuing that policy. Now, Congress needs to act to end ICE’s reign of terror in our communities and block this cruel and inhumane plan.” 

Today, following reporting fromthe Washington Post that the IRS had turned over immigrant tax data to the Department of Homeland Security to send ICE after taxpayers in our community, Ways and Means Democrats demanded an investigation into the leak of 47,000 people's confidential information.   

Last year, after New York Timesreporting revealed the Trump Administration’s efforts to mark living people as dead at Social Security in an attempt to pressure immigrants to leave the country, Larson and Neal spoke out and the policy was soon reversed. Last month, Congress passed bipartisan legislation to prevent the Social Security Administration from meddling with death records to target residents. It became law earlier this week.