ICE shared improperly obtained Medicaid data with Palantir, filings reveal

CMS accidentally re-shared dataset with millions of names, officials say

ICE then gave the data to Palantir, which operates an application called ELITE that displays addresses of noncitizens who may be subject to deportation, the filings said. The data transfer was detailed in a motion filed Thursday by the attorneys general, who are asking the judge to hold federal agencies in contempt for violating his orders.

Palantir did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security also did not return a request for comment.

The case is the latest chapter in an ongoing legal battle over the government’s use of health data for immigration enforcement. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee in San Francisco, ruled in December that health officials could share with ICE certain details from Medicaid records — home addresses, dates of birth and immigration status — about immigrants without lawful status in the states that had sued.

But in late May, Chhabria temporarily paused data sharing between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and ICE for immigration enforcement after federal officials acknowledged they had transferred data in January that went beyond what the court order allowed. One dataset of refugees in Minnesota included U.S. citizens, the court was told. A second dataset, transferred Jan. 7, contained records of millions of people, including those lawfully present in the country.

Chhabria ordered ICE to delete the improperly shared data and set a hearing for August.

In recent days, federal officials admitted to additional violations. The Justice Department said CMS had inadvertently reshared the Jan. 7 dataset with millions of names during an effort to transmit data from states not party to the lawsuit. Alberto Briseno, a section chief for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, said in a declaration that ICE personnel deleted that file after it was discovered and the data was not used for law enforcement.

Briseno disclosed that a day later, a broader search found that half a dozen ICE users still had copies of the Jan. 7 dataset. In his declaration, Briseno said he was unaware of additional copies but acknowledged that the searches had “highlighted technological difficulties of making a representation that every possible variation of the file has been searched for and located.” He said ICE “will continue to make good faith efforts to delete any copies that may be found in the future.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is asking Chhabria to expand his order to allow ICE to receive data on a broader category of noncitizens — potentially including all immigrants who are not legal permanent residents, U.S. citizens or holders of another form of permanent status.

The Democratic attorneys general, in their motion filed late Thursday, argued the opposite. “ICE’s inability to identify Medicaid records in its possession undercuts any claim that the agency should be entitled to more access to that data,” they wrote.

The filing continued: “Each successive revelation of a violation of the Order makes it more difficult for Plaintiff States to have confidence in Defendants’ ability to maintain and secure this data in compliance with the Order, and more difficult for Plaintiff States to communicate assurances to Medicaid providers, enrollees (and their counsel), and the public at large about the privacy and confidentiality of their healthcare data.”

California Deputy Attorney General Anna Rich, in a declaration, said that when plaintiffs asked what steps federal officials had taken to ensure Palantir and other contractors purged the improperly shared data, defendants responded that the data had been transmitted over a Microsoft Teams chat and that the shared file was deleted from the chat. A document turned over in discovery, Rich said, shows a redacted transcript of what appears to be ICE personnel asking Palantir to delete the file.

At an April 30 hearing, Chhabria had warned the government that it would not be able to continue drawing on Medicaid data for deportation efforts if it kept improperly sharing the data of citizens and legal immigrants. “If the federal government cannot be sufficiently careful then it can’t use the information, ok?” Chhabria said.