Hi everyone:
Sorry for this long post, but there have been significant developments in the last few weeks around how federal agencies share both federal and state data, particularly with Homeland Security, that may interest many here.
The sharing of data on immigrants may significantly affect response rates for the Census and in census surveys. Because more than one in four citizen children in the US lives in a family with immigrants, that will really adversely affect the count of children. So I'm sitting in on the immigrant data privacy group led by Laura Macleery at UnidosUS and want to make sure that folks here know of these developments. If you know of additional developments, particulalry with other federal agencies trying to access state data and then share it with Homeland Security, I would love to know about it.
- The lawsuit trying to stop the IRS from providing address data to Homeland Security did not result in a restraining order or preliminary injunction, but is ongoing. In the meantime, the IRS is free to implement the agreement they have with HS, but the attorneys think they may feel limited to implementing the agreement the way they represented it to the court as being a few cases, only with criminal investigations, with the data being sequestered and returned if it doesn't result in a criminal prosecution. (Final orders of deportation are civil orders, so this would preclude them using the addresses just to deport people.) That of course is a lot better than Homeland Security requesting and getting 700,000 people's addresses, which is what they planned at one point. But we don't actually know if that's what they are doing, and they may return to the broader plan if the lawsuit ends.
2. USDA has requested state SNAP records; there is a lawsuit, there is no TRO or PI, but we don't think they have gotten any records yet because they agreed that they have to go through a relatively time-consuming process to get them. They have backed off trying to get the records from third party data processers.
3. Yesterday (Monday, June 23) USDA put out a new federal register notice asking for comment on their plan to do more data sharing. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/06/23/2025-11463/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records Its a 30 day notice, which I think means comments are due July 23. I know Kate Tromble posted about this: I want to flag this language, which would seem to cover the disclosure of SNAP information to immigration authorities:
a. (8) When a record on its face, or in conjunction with other records, indicates a violation or potential violation of law, whether civil, criminal or regulatory in nature, and whether arising by general statute or particular program statute, or by regulation, rule, or order issued pursuant thereto, USDA/FNS may disclose the record to the appropriate agency, whether Federal, foreign, State, local, or tribal, or other public authority responsible for enforcing, investigating, or prosecuting such violation or charged with enforcing or implementing the statute, or rule, regulation, or order issued pursuant thereto, if the information disclosed is relevant to any enforcement, regulatory, investigative or prosecutive responsibility of the receiving entity.
- According to a June 13 AP article, on June 10 over the objections of senior HHS staff, two top level HHS staff ordered that HHS Medicaid files be turned over to Homeland Security and gave them less than an hour. That data included at least four states which have state-funded Medicaid programs for undocumented people (CA, WA, IL, DC) but we don't know if the records those states routinely provide HHS include individual information on people who are not funded with federal funds. It also included data on people accessing emergency Medicaid-which is available even to undocumented people.
- Protecting Immigrant Families has created a very helpful guide to state advocates that is tracking these developments with links to key items and provides guidance on how to advise families. Medicaid and SNAP Data Sharing: What Advocates Need to Know. They will be updating this regularly (it doesn't yet have the FRN from USDA, but it will.)
- Laura Macleary at UnidosUS put out an excellent op-ed on why data privacy is key to our democracy: The New Surveillance State: Why Data Privacy Is Now Essential to Democracy | TechPolicy.Press
- In a rare bright spot, I joined a call with state child welfare system staff to share what's been happening today, and no one on the call had heard of efforts to get data on families with children in foster care or receiving preventative services.
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Deborah Stein
Deborah Stein, Coalition on Human Needs, for Count
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