Elon Musk, DOGE use access to Social Security data to elevate claims against migrants
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency say they're using their access to the Social Security Administration data not only to investigate claims of waste and fraud, but also to examine claims that immigrants are abusing the system — even though undocumented immigrants contribute more to Social Security than they take.
During his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last Sunday, Musk and Antonio Gracias, a longtime friend and DOGE employee at the Social Security Administration, displayed a chart that purported to show over 5 million non-citizens who were issued Social Security numbers between 2021 and 2025.
Musk called it a "massive financial incentive" for people to come to the U.S. illegally and claimed it was a large-scale Democratic "program" intended "to import as many illegals as possible." Gracias claimed the number of immigrants with Social Security numbers was "totally uncontrolled" and blamed former President Joe Biden's immigration laws for this.
The U.S. may grant parole to certain migrants for humanitarian or other reasons, allowing them to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis, usually for a year or two, but it's not a path to citizenship. The status allows some to obtain Social Security numbers, which makes it legal for them to find work, but they do not receive Social Security benefits.
DOGE's chart represented immigrants with legal work authorizations who were given Social Security numbers through the Enumeration Beyond Entry program, known as EBE. Those here illegally, without any lawful immigration status, are not eligible for a Social Security number.
But then Gracias conflated the two groups and talked broadly about violent acts by undocumented immigrants as he stood in front of a chart showing data about immigrants with legal work permits.
The EBE program, created during President Trump's first term, automatically processes Social Security cards for immigrants with temporary or permanent legal status, including those with green cards or work authorization from the Department of Homeland Security.
"A hundred percent of the people in the EBE program, all their paperwork and status has been validated by DHS. That's where SSA gets all that information from," said Kathleen Romig, a Director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Experts say the program, a partnership between SSA and DHS, was designed to improve efficiency and availability for the SSA's frontline staff.
In mid-March, the EBE program was paused, according to an internal email shared with CBS News. No specific reason was given. CBS News has reached out to SSA to ask about the data in the DOGE chart, as well as why the program was paused.
Asked Tuesday about DOGE's claims, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she wasn't familiar with the numbers but pointed to an inspector general's report that found $72 billion worth of improper payments in the program from 2015 to 2022. Most were overpayments and made up less than 1% of the total benefits paid during that period.
"There are individuals who should not be receiving benefits on the Social Security rolls, and this administration is focused on cleaning out the waste, fraud and abuse in every agency, but particularly in Social Security," Leavitt said.
DOGE access to Social Security and personal data
Gracias said DOGE received "a lot" of help from employees at SSA and immigration agencies in accessing data on immigrants, from alleged benefits they receive to their voting records.
DOGE's access to personal, sensitive data within agencies has been a fraught, highly litigated issue. Data sharing between agencies is subject to numerous privacy laws, though Mr. Trump issued an executive order on March 20 directing federal agency heads to grant "full and prompt access of unclassified" data to federal officials in order "to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse."
The Department of Justice said DOGE has been provided read-only access to the agency's data, according to a court filing.
In a court battle looking to limit DOGE's access, DOGE has argued that anonymizing the data would make it "impractical for those employees to conduct their work." The administration contends DOGE employees at the agency had completed all required agreements and training to access this data.
Gracias claimed Wednesday that DOGE has found immigrants who have Social Security numbers on state voter rolls. Non-citizens are barred from voting in federal and state elections, and if caught, the penalty is deportation. He said they referred these cases to immigration agencies and said "they've committed to prosecute." But he provided no evidence of this and did not say how many cases have been referred or how many would be prosecuted.
"That allowed us to connect all this data, to find these people across the system, across the benefit system, all the way to the voting records," Gracias said of Mr. Trump's executive order.
Some agency employees have raised alarms over the rush to provide DOGE employees with access to this data. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said a former senior SSA official had written to him to report that DOGE employees and the nominee to lead the SSA, Frank Bisignano, worked to speed access to this data for DOGE employee Akash Bobba, a 22-year-old engineer at the agency.
Tiffany Flick, a former SSA employee, wrote in an affidavit that Mike Russo, a DOGE senior adviser at SSA, did not give a "sufficiently detailed" reason why Bobba and DOGE employees needed access. Justice Department lawyers said in a later filing that DOGE employees were working on projects cleaning up the death records at SSA or finding ways to identify fraud in new claims and wage reporting.
The Internal Revenue Service has also been working on an agreement with immigration agencies to share individual taxpayer data about undocumented migrants, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. DHS staff has been requesting access to data on individual taxpayer identification numbers, known as ITINs, which are given to non-citizens.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, one of the key architects of Trump's immigration policy, supports allowing DOGE to utilize the data to help immigration officials. In February, Miller said if Internal Revenue Service investigators find "illegal aliens stealing taxpayer money, of course they'll be referred to ICE. Of course they'll be referred to Homeland Security investigations."
Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service under former President Bill Clinton, said while agency data systems "do talk to each other" through systems like "E-Verify" for employees, the IRS has "always been completely hands off."
"IRS information has never been made available to enforcement agencies. That is entirely new, and anybody working in this field for a long time would never imagine that could happen," Meissner said, noting that there have been "strong privacy protections" in law that are "carefully controlled."
DOGE makes incorrect claims about immigrants receiving "maximum" Social Security benefits
Gracias also claimed the "defaults" in the Social Security system are set to "max inclusion, max pay for these people."
But experts say there is no "maximum" benefit setting for non-citizen workers. SSA guidance says those who entered the U.S. after Aug. 22, 1996, are not eligible for Supplemental Security Income such as disability payments from taxes they've paid within their first five to seven years in the U.S.
There are cases where immigrants will make up a Social Security number on their employment forms, but this does not benefit the immigrants. It's hardly ever corrected by the employer, and their paid taxes are labeled as "unattributed funds" and added to the Social Security trust fund.
Undocumented immigrants without work authorization play a sizable role in funding the Social Security system. Analysts estimate undocumented immigrants account for an additional $20 billion annually in payments into Social Security that they will never withdraw.
Romig said Musk "got it backwards" by saying "immigrants are somehow a drain on Social Security's finances."
"The more immigrants that we have coming into the United States, the stronger Social Security finances are because they contribute more to the trust funds than they take out," she said.
