Judge Partly Clears Medicaid Data Sharing With ICE

Overview

• U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria allowed ICE to obtain six data fields from Medicaid files—address, citizenship, immigration status, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID.
• The ruling applies only to individuals known to be in the country illegally, and the judge criticized other agency policies as unclear and lacking coherent decision-making.
• The decision approves core elements of a July CMS–DHS agreement covering records for roughly 79 million enrollees, with the court stating the limited sharing is authorized by law.
• Twenty-two Democratic-led states sued to block the arrangement and can appeal, while a prior injunction remains in effect until next Monday for administrative purposes and a Friday hearing is set if necessary.
• California’s attorney general welcomed the injunction against seeking more sensitive health data or data on citizens and lawful residents, reflecting the court’s halt on requests beyond the six approved fields.