The judge prevents HHS from sharing Medicaid data with immigration officials

A federal judge ordered the Ministry of Health and Social Services to stop giving access to personal data from MEDICAID registrations, including their domestic addresses, immigration officials.

District Judge Vince Chhabria, one appointed by Obama, has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Ministry of Internal Security to use the Medicaid data obtained from 20 states which have put legal action to stop the sharing of data.

The order, transmitted Tuesday, prevents the HHS from sharing data on the registrants of Medicaid in these states with immigration and the application of customs in order to target migrants for deportation.

“The use of CMS data for the application of immigration threatens to considerably disrupt the functioning of Medicaid – a program that Congress has deemed criticism for the supply of health coverage to the most vulnerable residents of the country,” wrote Chhabria.

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A judge ordered HHS to stop giving access to personal data from the registrants of Medicaid to immigration officials. (Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)

The judge wrote that although there is nothing “categorically illegal” about the DHS collecting data from other agencies for the purposes of implementing immigration, Ice has had a policy against the use of Medicaid data for this reason for 12 years.

The centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have also long maintained a policy of using personal information of patients only to manage its health care programs.

“Given these policies, and since the various actors in the Medicaid system relied on them, it was the agencies to carry out a reasoned decision -making process before changing them,” wrote Chhabria, adding: “The file in this case strongly suggests that no process of this type has occurred.”

Chhabria said that the preliminary injunction will remain in force until HHS provides a “reasoned decision -making” for its new data sharing policy with immigration officials or until the dispute ends.

The disclosure of Medicaid data is part of the wider effort of the Trump administration to give more DHS data to help locate migrants and carry out the president’s mass expulsion plan. In May, a federal judge refused to prevent internal income from sharing the tax data of immigrants with ice officials.

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The disclosure of Medicaid data is part of a wider effort of the Trump administration to give more DHS data to help locate migrants. (Saul Loeb / AFP)

“The Trump administration’s decision to use Medicaid data for the application of immigration has changed long -standing political protections without notice or counterpart for the consequences,” said California prosecutor Rob Bonta in a statement. “While the president continues to overcome his authority in his inhuman anti-immigrant crusade, it is a clear reminder that it remains bound by law.”

HHS first provided the personal information of millions of Medicaid registered in June, which prompted legal action by the 20 states to block the new policy.

In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded a new agreement which allowed the DHS to have daily access to the personal data of the 79 million registrations of Medicaid in the country, including their social security numbers and their interior address.

None of the two agreements has been announced publicly. HHS insisted that its agreement with the DHS is legal.

Medicaid officials had tried to block data transfer, but they were rejected by the best advisers to the Secretary of Health and Social Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Immigrants – legal and illegal – are not allowed to register for the Medicaid program, which offers almost free coverage for health services. However, under federal law, all states must offer the Medicaid emergency, temporary coverage which only covers rescue services in emergency rooms to anyone, including people who are not American citizens.

The judge prevented the DHS from using Medicaid data obtained from 20 states that filed a complaint to stop data sharing. (Getty Images)

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“The protection of private health information of people is of vital importance,” said the prosecutor general of Washington, Nick Brown, in a statement. “And everyone should be able to ask for medical care without fear of what the federal government can do with this information.”

The sharing of personal data from Medicaid registrants could worry people looking for emergency medical aid for themselves or their children, warned immigration defenders.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.