Judge temporarily blocks Medicaid data sharing with ICE officials

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from sharing the personal data of Medicaid enrollees with immigration officials. 

District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction on Aug. 12 blocking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using Medicaid data obtained from 20 states for immigration enforcement purposes. 

It also blocks HHS from sharing Medicaid data obtained from this coalition of states with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immigration enforcement purposes. 

The preliminary injunction will remain in place either until 14 days after HHS and DHS complete a “reasoned decisionmaking process” that complies with the Administrative Procedure Act, or until litigation concludes. 

Chhabria wrote that while there is nothing “categorically unlawful” about DHS obtaining data from agencies like HHS for immigration enforcement purposes, ICE has had a well-publicized policy against using Medicaid data for that explicit purpose since 2013.  

Similarly, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has long maintained a policy of only using patients’ personal information to run its health care programs, and has publicized that on its website. 

“Given these policies, and given that the various players in the Medicaid system have relied on them, it was incumbent upon the agencies to carry out a reasoned decisionmaking process before changing them,” Chhabria wrote.  

“The record in this case strongly suggests that no such process occurred.” 

In July, California led a multistate coalition in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration arguing that the mass transfer of Medicaid data violated the law, and it asked the court to block any new transfer or use of the data for immigration enforcement purposes. 

The data transfer, first reported by The Associated Press in June, showed that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, but were overruled by top advisers to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  

The dataset includes the information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C., all of which allow non-U.S. citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. 

“The Trump Administration’s move to use Medicaid data for immigration enforcement upended longstanding policy protections without notice or consideration for the consequences,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. “As the President continues to overstep his authority in his inhumane anti-immigrant crusade, this is a clear reminder that he remains bound by the law.”