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The acting head of the Social Security Administration rebuffed a federal judge’s request to appear at a hearing to “clarify” reports alleging that the Trump administration is placing thousands of immigrants on the agency’s “death master file” to harass them out of the country.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander heard arguments on Tuesday over whether to extend her temporary restraining order blocking the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from obtaining access to identifying records at the Social Security Administration. The order is set to expire on Thursday.
In a letter last week, Judge Hollander asked Acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Leland Dudek to appear to “clarify” information detailed in a New York Times article, claiming the Trump administration was “repurposing Social Security’s ‘death master file’ in an effort to pressure immigrants to ‘self deport.” More than 6,000 names of migrants whose legal statuses had been revoked had been added to the file as of last week, the outlet reported.
Dudek also reportedly wrote an email to Social Security Administration staff claiming these individuals’ “financial lives” would be “terminated.”
A small crew of Social Security staffers reportedly has tremendous power to deem someone “dead” in the files without any proof. In fact the intention to do so appears to be harassing people thought to be living.
The effect of being declared dead by Social Security creates tremendous complications for people from employment to banking to insurance.
Judge Hollander noted that the government previously told the court that the DOGE team is working on a project involving the death master file that “does not correspond to what was described in the news.”
Hollander emphasized that Dudek’s testimony “may be helpful” to understand the various projects that has has referenced in his filings.
But on Monday, one day before the hearing, government lawyers informed the court that after reviewing the “evidentiary record” and “the demands on the Acting Commissioner’s time,” officials decided Dudek would not appear. Instead, they opted to “stand on the record in its current form.”
Earlier that day, lawyers for the plaintiffs — labor unions and nonprofit organizations — submitted a declaration from Tiffany Flick, a former Social Security Administration official, explaining the death master file.
The consequences for erroneously marking someone as dead are “severe,” she wrote. People marked as dead when they are still alive could be unable to obtain a job, rent a car, access FEMA benefits, or apply for bank loans. Applications for insurance coverage could be rejected and life insurance policies could be canceled.
“Intentionally marking people who are still living as dead” in the death master file is “unheard of and improper,” Flick said.
Her declaration also poked a hole in arguments made by Elon Musk and Trump, who have claimed that tens of millions of actual dead people have been receiving Social Security payments.
Flick described the death master file, explaining that all 50 states use an automated system to report individuals’ deaths to the Social Security Administration. Errors in the data are “minimal,” she wrote.
When asked about the Social Security Administration’s plans, a spokesperson for the White House did not deny the information, but told the Times: “President Trump promised mass deportations, and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport.”
