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A federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to stop providing access to Medicaid enrollees’ personal data, including their home addresses, to immigration officials.
District Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee, granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Homeland Security from using Medicaid data obtained from 20 states that filed a lawsuit to stop the data sharing.
The order, handed down Tuesday, blocks HHS from sharing data on Medicaid enrollees in these states with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of targeting migrants for deportation.
“Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents,” Chhabria wrote.
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A judge ordered HHS to stop providing access to Medicaid enrollees’ personal data to immigration officials. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
The judge wrote that while there is nothing “categorically unlawful” about DHS collecting data from other agencies for immigration enforcement purposes, ICE has had a policy against using Medicaid data for that reason for 12 years.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also long maintained a policy of using patients’ personal information only to run its healthcare programs.
“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 decision-making process before changing them,” Chhabria wrote, adding: “The record in this case strongly suggests that no such process occurred.”
Chhabria said the preliminary injunction will remain in effect until HHS provides “reasoned decision-making” for its new policy of sharing data with immigration officials or…
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