Asian Americans face new threats as ICE gains access to Medicaid data

Immigration authorities will now obtain access to sensitive details of 79 million Medicaid recipients for use in locating undocumented immigrants, according to an agreement seen by the Associated Press.

The new data-sharing arrangement reportedly stems from a July 14 agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has not been made public. Under the deal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can access enrollee information during business hours through Sept. 9, with officials able to view full profiles containing personal details like names, race, birthdates, home addresses and Social Security numbers.

The move has sparked internal resistance, with one CMS official telling AP News, “They are trying to turn us into immigration agents.” This follows earlier demands by the Trump administration for data from seven Democratic-led states that extended Medicaid to non-citizens, prompting multiple states to sue over violations of federal health privacy laws.

Nearly one in five Asian Americans — about 3.6 million people — depended on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for health coverage in 2022, with certain subgroups relying disproportionately on these programs. Today, Asian Americans make up 6% of Medicaid enrollees, roughly matching their share of the overall population. The data sharing particularly threatens Asian seniors, who enroll in Medicaid at higher rates than the general senior population, and working-age Asian adults without high school diplomas, 50% of whom depend on Medicaid coverage.

The policy raises broader concerns about deterring healthcare access, especially since foreign-born noncitizens comprise 9.2% of all Medicaid enrollees nationwide and often rely on emergency Medicaid services that do not require full eligibility verification. Among Asian American workers, about one in 10 depend on Medicaid for health insurance, potentially exposing them to immigration enforcement risks at their workplaces.

The information sharing marks another escalation in Trump’s broader immigration enforcement efforts, which aim to arrest 3,000 people daily and could discourage both immigrants and citizens from accessing emergency medical services.