Chicago – August 16, 2025
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop sharing personal information of Medicaid enrollees with immigration officials. This includes sensitive details like home addresses and Social Security numbers. The judge’s decision comes after the Associated Press reported that HHS had been providing deportation officials with access to the data of 79 million Medicaid recipients since June.
This action sparked a lawsuit from 20 states, including California, Arizona, Washington, and New York, who argued that this practice violated privacy rights. The lawsuit followed a new agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allowed DHS to access the personal information of all Medicaid enrollees on a daily basis.
The decision by Judge Vince Chhabria, who issued the temporary halt, is part of a larger debate over the sharing of sensitive data with immigration authorities. In a similar case earlier this year, a judge ruled that the IRS could share tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help locate and detain undocumented immigrants.
Despite the ruling, a spokesperson for HHS did not confirm if the department would permanently stop sharing the data with DHS, though the agency has maintained that the data-sharing agreement is legal.
