Wyden, Senate Colleagues Slam Social Security for Improperly Declaring Thousands Dead, Call for Watchdog Investigation
Trump administration abused Death Master File to purge at least 6,300 Social Security numbers-including children and seniors
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and 11 Senate colleagues slammed the Social Security Administration (SSA) for transferring thousands of Social Security numbers associated with immigrants to SSA’s Death Master File, marking them as dead to pressure ‘self-deportation’ and demanded the agency’s watchdog launch a full investigation into the decision.
Exploiting Social Security’s Death Master File to terminate the SSN of living individuals without full due process violates several federal laws and bedrock constitutional rights. The Trump administration’s actions violate their due process rights enshrined in the Constitution, falsify government records, and violate the Privacy Act, wrote the senators. Even Trump’s lawyers reportedly agreed that Social Security’s actions violated the Privacy Act.
“This decision will result in the ‘financial murder’ of living individuals improperly placed in the file, with everything from their credit cards and banking to their ability to access healthcare and housing being ripped out from under them,” the senators wrote in the letters to Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek and Social Security Assistant Inspector General for Audit Michelle Anderson.
The senators also called on the SSA Office of the Inspector General to launch a full investigation into the agency’s decision to begin using the Death Master File for this purpose, including how an individual gets targeted, who at the agency has decision making authority, and how those who have their SSNs nullified through this process can get it fixed if there is a mistake.
The Trump administration’s abuse of Social Security’s centerpiece role in America’s economy sets a dangerous precedent of allowing the government to rip away workers’ access to their earned Social Security benefits while threatening the security of all Americans.
“The purpose of SSA is to provide for the welfare of number-holders and their dependents, not to serve as an arm of President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. This move degrades the solvency, reliability, and accuracy of SSA systems and programs. It is as cruel as it is thoughtless– the impact will be felt in communities across the country and in the future of SSA programs themselves,” the senators concluded in one of their letters to SSA.
In addition to Wyden, the letter was signed by Senators Peter Welch, D-Vt., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai’i, Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Angus King, I-Maine, Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
The letter text to SSA Acting Commissioner Dudek is here.
The letter text to SSA Assistant Inspector General for Audit Anderson is here.
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