WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency pushed to declare nearly 3 million living people dead as part of an effort to drive illegal immigrants out of the country, according to a new report.
The plan, which officials say never went into effect, would have placed scores of people — including some US citizens — into the Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File,” effectively deleting them from the American financial system, jeopardising their ability to access wages, benefits and banking services.
Jeremiah Schofield, a longtime Social Security employee who left his job last year, disclosed details of the alleged plan in a lengthy whistleblower report filed with two Senate committees, The Washington Post reported.
Schofield claimed that a DOGE official partnering with the Department of Homeland Security outlined the goal of classifying 2.7 million living people as deceased: making immigrants “so miserable” that they would voluntarily leave the US or travel to government offices for assistance, where they could be detained and deported.
“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield told the Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
Administration officials pushed back against Schofield’s claims.
An SSA spokesperson told The Independent that the agency, based in Maryland, “did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File. SSA maintains the highest level of internal controls. This includes having all appropriate policies and procedures in place to maintain the integrity and accuracy of agency records.”
A DHS representative didn’t answer queries about the plan, but told the Post: “Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.”
