Elon Musk and Social Safety’s Effort to Curb Unlawful Immigration

One hallmark of Elon Musk’s 12 weeks in authorities has been his give attention to Social Safety.

He has despatched certainly one of his closest advisers to work on the Social Safety Administration. He has falsely insisted that this system is rife with fraud. And he has depicted the entitlement as a software — a “large magnet,” to be particular — that he says entices unlawful immigrants to come back to the US.

That final half has turned Social Safety into a serious point of interest of Musk’s unfounded perception that Democrats have allowed immigrants into the US as a part of a scheme to tilt the citizens of their favor.

A staff of my colleagues has reported that Musk is now driving large adjustments on the Social Safety Administration which have braided elements of his rhetoric concerning the company immediately into coverage. The company is putting sure immigrants — people who find themselves very a lot alive — on the company’s checklist of lifeless folks, reducing them off from essential monetary providers in an effort to push them to depart the nation.

I referred to as my colleague Alexandra Berzon to speak about this reporting, and he or she defined that, in response to the White Home’s personal accounting, the focused migrants didn’t obtain a lot in the way in which of presidency advantages — and none of them acquired Social Safety.

The brand new effort, she defined, is much less about cost-cutting than it’s about getting the Social Safety Administration into the enterprise of immigration enforcement, a push that has deeply alarmed present and former workers of the company.

Clarify to me what you and our colleagues found when reporting this story. How is the Trump administration utilizing Social Safety as a software for immigration coverage?

Social Safety maintains one thing referred to as the “demise grasp file,” which helps to make sure that Social Safety numbers for the deceased aren’t used for identification fraud and that kind of factor. Yearly, they add round three million folks to this checklist, whose deaths they monitor with the assistance of state data, funeral houses and other people’s households. This checklist can also be distributed by the Division of Commerce, and it finally ends up being utilized by monetary establishments, mortgage corporations, insurance coverage corporations, bank card corporations, banks and others, who usually shut or droop the accounts of individuals believed to be lifeless. When folks mistakenly find yourself on this checklist, it’s a nightmare.

Now, the Division of Homeland Safety is sending sure migrants’ names over to the Social Safety Administration to be added to the checklist as in the event that they had been lifeless. They suppose this can make folks’s lives so troublesome that they may self-deport. They’re renaming the “demise grasp file” the “ineligible grasp file.”

Who, precisely, has been added to this checklist?

The unique memos that set this up — from Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland safety, to Leland Dudek, the performing commissioner of the Social Safety Administration — described two classes of individuals: migrants who’re suspected terrorists and those that are convicted criminals. We realized this week that 6,300 individuals who the federal government says fell beneath these classes had been added to this file. These had been folks allowed into the nation quickly and given Social Safety numbers, however who’ve now had their standing revoked. Officers mentioned the trouble might broaden to incorporate others within the nation with out authorization.

Musk has talked so much about the concept unlawful immigrants are drawn to this nation to get Social Safety advantages. Is there any proof that the migrants on this checklist had been truly drawing Social Safety advantages?

Immigrants pay into the Social Safety system, and so they sometimes don’t get advantages from it, so that they’re truly contributing to the system. It’s the alternative of what Musk has mentioned. There are some restricted advantages that sure immigrants — those that have been approved to work, and who’ve Social Safety numbers in consequence — are eligible for after sure durations of time. However, so far as we all know, these should not enormous numbers.

Late yesterday, a White Home official despatched us an inventory of the advantages these folks had acquired. They mentioned that round 1,000 folks out of this group of about 6,300 collected Medicaid, unemployment advantages or scholar loans. Once we added all of it up, these advantages averaged to about $600 per particular person amongst those that had gotten the advantages — none of which had been Social Safety advantages.

So it’s true that a number of the folks positioned on the demise checklist had been drawing federal advantages. However there isn’t a proof to counsel that these folks had been truly drawing on the coffers of Social Safety.

Our dialog was edited for size and readability.

AGENCY REPORT

What would Trump do with an enormous cost-cutting alternative favored by Biden?

During the last two years, well being executives have recognized what they see as a first-rate goal for cost-cutting in Medicaid: a little-known medical product referred to as a pores and skin substitute. I requested Sarah Kliff, an investigative well being care reporter at The New York Occasions, to elucidate how the Trump administration is approaching a chance to scale back authorities spending on that product.

Pores and skin substitutes are small bandages usually made out of dehydrated placentas. There’s some proof that they will help heal sure cussed sores, notably people who folks with diabetes can get on the soles of their ft.

Medicare reimbursement for pores and skin substitutes has soared over the previous couple of years, from $1.6 billion in 2022 to $10 billion in 2024.

My colleague Katie Thomas and I reported this week on one driver of the spending development: Docs have robust monetary incentives to make use of pores and skin substitutes. Firms promote these bandages to medical doctors at a reduction, however the medical doctors cost Medicare the complete sticker worth and pocket the distinction. We had authorized consultants overview some contracts, and so they noticed language that would conceal kickbacks.

Katie and I wrote our story partly as a result of the Trump administration was going through a key deadline. Medicare needed to determine by April 13 whether or not to hold out a Biden-era plan to limit pores and skin substitute protection. The plan would restrict protection for merchandise that didn’t have good proof displaying they labored.

Once we wrote our story, we weren’t positive the place the administration would land. On the one hand, we knew that President Trump had criticized the Biden plan on social media, and that his marketing campaign had acquired a big donation from one of many largest pores and skin substitute corporations. On the opposite, we knew that he has made slashing authorities spending a marquee aim of his second administration. Well being-cost consultants instructed us that pores and skin substitutes might characterize the most important instance of waste in Medicare’s historical past.

This morning, we bought our reply: The Trump administration won’t put the Biden rule into impact. As a substitute, they may delay it till 2026, leaving dozens of unproven merchandise available on the market and eligible for Medicare reimbursement.

— Sarah Kliff

MEANWHILE on X

Defending a Musk defender

Musk has been comparatively quiet on X right now, by his requirements. However my colleague Ryan Mac seen that he used his account to advertise a Trump ally who has stood up for him. Right here’s extra.

For weeks, Ed Martin, a far-right election denier whom Trump nominated to be the U.S. legal professional in Washington, D.C., has defended the actions of Musk and his Division of Authorities Effectivity.

Musk has reciprocated the favor.

On Friday, the billionaire used his X account to push the Senate to approve Martin’s nomination, replying to a different publish with, “Verify Ed Martin!” It’s the second time in lower than a month that he’s voiced his assist for Martin, who has been an advocate for the Jan. 6 rioters and is in line to steer the workplace that prosecuted them.

Martin has portrayed himself as a prepared assault canine for Musk and DOGE. In February, he posted a letter to his X account addressed to Musk by which he threatened to “pursue any and all authorized motion towards anybody” who impeded Musk’s work with DOGE. That was after information organizations started to reveal the identities of a number of the folks concerned with the cost-cutting activity drive.

4 days later, Martin posted a second be aware saying that he would open an inquiry after receiving a referral from Musk “of people and networks who look like stealing authorities property and/or threatening authorities workers.”

As Martin awaits affirmation, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who’re pushing to carry a listening to on his nomination have cited his letters to Musk as justification.

— Ryan Mac

BY THE NUMBERS

$150 billion

That’s the quantity of presidency spending that Musk, throughout a gathering of Trump’s cupboard yesterday, mentioned DOGE was on tempo to chop from the federal finances in a single finances 12 months. His earlier said aim was $1 trillion in cuts.