Overview
- A 49-page whistleblower disclosure by former SSA official Jeremiah Schofield alleges DOGE operatives pushed to add 2.7 million living people to the Social Security Death Master File to pressure immigrants to leave the country.
- The Social Security Administration has said it did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File while reporting also shows a smaller action last year moved roughly 6,100 people into the file.
- Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal sent formal letters seeking answers from SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and former DOGE staffers after Friday's reporting of the whistleblower disclosure revealed the allegation.
- The Death Master File is used by banks, employers and agencies to verify if someone has died, and wrongful inclusion can block wages, bank accounts, benefits, credit, housing and health coverage for people wrongly marked as dead.
- Schofield says agency lawyers warned the plan could violate federal law, he refused to help implement it, and the new disclosure has renewed scrutiny of DOGE's access to sensitive government data and related legal and privacy risks.