A judge blocked Musk staffers from accessing Social Security data, but of course, they’ve ignored those orders. We warned this was happening: Musk operatives have been marking individuals in the Social Security system as dead in an effort to pressure immigrants to self-deport.
But here’s what they don’t tell you, under U.S. law, undocumented individuals are not eligible to receive a Social Security Number. The SSA only issues SSNs to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain noncitizens with valid work authorization from the Department of Homeland Security. So if someone appears in the SSA database, it means they were legally authorized to be here. And yet Musk’s staffers are illegally falsifying federal records. Dozens of immigrants have already shown up at SSA offices with documentation, trying to have their records corrected and their identities reinstated.
This entire effort is being led by two of Musk’s top operatives, Jon Koval and Payton Rehling, now transferred from the Social Security Administration to the Justice Department’s immigration enforcement unit. They’ve spent months accessing sensitive SSA data under the pretense of “cutting costs.” That initiative failed to deliver savings, but it succeeded in spreading fear and chaos among immigrant families.
In their new roles, Koval and Rehling are now tasked with combing through Social Security databases for information on immigrants already in deportation proceedings.
Under Trump, the DOJ’s role in immigration enforcement has massively expanded. Federal agents have been instructed to prioritize immigration cases, investigate local governments that don’t comply—and most disturbingly, revoke Social Security cards by falsely declaring migrants dead in government systems.
This isn’t policy. It’s targeted erasure.
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