SSA Lists Immigrants as Deceased to Spur Self-Deporting
In a development first reported this week by The New York Times, the Social Security Administration initiated a process this week to classify thousands of non-citizen immigrants holding temporary legal status and valid Social Security numbers as deceased.
This administrative reclassification effectively cancels the individual’s Social Security number (SSN), which could potentially block access to any government benefits they might be entitled to and lead banks and other institutions to cut off access to accounts and credit for those affected.
The SSA recently renamed its “death master file” used to track deceased individuals and prevent improper benefit payments to the “ineligible master file.” According to the Associated Press, the first cohort added to this “ineligible master file” included over 6,000 immigrants who entered the United States through a parole program instituted under former President Joe Biden.
The AP story, citing two officials familiar with the moves and their ramifications, said stripping the immigrants of their Social Security numbers and cutting them off from many financial services is intended to encourage them to “self-deport” and abandon the U.S. for their birth countries.
