Another American whistleblower has emerged. According to a report by The Washington Post on June 5th, a former senior official at the U.S. Social Security Administration revealed that as part of immigration enforcement measures, the Trump administration planned to register 2.7 million people, including American citizens and legal permanent residents, as deceased in the social security records system. This was intended to completely cut off these individuals access to financial services, forcing them to leave the country due to their inability to live normally.
According to reports, the Death Database, which records population data, is one of the most influential identity databases in the United States. It is used by banks, employment companies, and various government agencies to verify the living status of individuals.
Once a person is mistakenly marked as deceased by this system, their financial life and access to public services will be completely disrupted. They will be unable to receive salaries, open bank accounts, apply for various government benefits, or even lose their rights to other public services.
Before leaving his position in October last year, Jeremiah Schofield was responsible for the IT modernization project at the US Social Security Administration.
He recalled that during a meeting, an official from the Government Efficiency Department (DOGE), who worked alongside the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, showed no hesitation in expressing his malicious intentions. He said that the main purpose of designating 2.7 million living people as deceased was to force immigrants into desperate situations. This meant that immigrants would either be forced to leave voluntarily, or they would be arrested by immigration officials while trying to seek help from social security agencies.
That was one of the most disappointing calls (meetings) in my 25-year career, he told The Washington Post. I was shocked; I couldnt believe what I heard.
The former head of the US Social Security Administration responsible for the information technology modernization project, Scofield. The Washington Post
In an interview, Skofield said that he revealed this information for the first time because he believes Americans have the right to know about the potential abuse of government data.
The US Social Security Administration refuses to acknowledge this. In a written statement, a spokesperson who requested not to be named said that the agency has not added 2.7 million names to the database of deceased individuals. The Social Security Administration maintains a highly sophisticated internal control system, along with comprehensive rules and procedures, to ensure the integrity and accuracy of its records.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions regarding this plan. However, she stated that sharing information across agencies could be beneficial, and criticized the Biden administrations immigration policies.
It was stated that sharing information among various agencies is crucial for identifying individuals within our country who may be involved in violent activities, determining potential threats to public safety and terrorism, and determining which public benefits these foreigners are receiving using taxpayer funds.
The White House spokesman did not provide any positive responses to this matter. Instead, he emphasized the policy achievements achieved by Trump last year through the implementation of the large-scale tax reform bill, which provided special temporary tax deductions for elderly individuals.
In fact, as early as April last year, it was revealed that the U.S. Social Security Administration had recorded the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 Latinos who are still alive. These information was used to track deceased individuals in its database. Sources familiar with the matter said that the Trump administration hopes to use this measure to force immigrants to leave the country on their own.
At that time, public officials from the Social Security Bureau warned that false entry of death dates for living individuals could lead to catastrophic consequences. However, the management rejected any objections related to this issue.
They have no right to remain in this country, said a White House official, who added that the next group to be included in the death toll database will be another 92,000 undocumented immigrants who have some criminal records. In the future, this number is expected to increase to include even those undocumented immigrants who have no criminal records at all.
According to the information disclosed by this latest whistleblower, the request to effectively remove information related to individuals from social security records came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This request involved a team led by billionaire Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE was accused of illegally accessing sensitive government data.
Skofield told American media that in February 2025, when DOGE personnel first arrived at the social security bureau headquarters, he was very welcoming to their presence.
As a senior employee with 25 years of experience, he is well aware of the many efficiency shortcomings in the U.S. social security welfare system. He hoped that DOGE could help improve the outdated social security system, and therefore proposed several optimization plans during the initial discussions.
But there were many dangerous signs at that time, said Skofield.
According to reports, more than a month after DOGEs entry into the market, federal judges issued temporary restraining orders, halting the departments efforts to obtain data from the Social Security Administration. However, in June of that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this injunction.
Two months later, Noam, the then Secretary of Homeland Security, sent two internal memos to the Director of Social Security, requesting that they stop illegal terrorist suspects from using social security numbers.
Along with the issuance of the memo, Scoville also discovered that the Department of Homeland Security had provided a list of 6100 individuals. The department required the Social Security Administration to mark these individuals as deceased in their financial records. He immediately consulted the legal counsel office within the Social Security Administration, who informed him that falsifying death records violated federal laws related to government records.
Skofield said that he had expressed these concerns to his superior, then-acting Deputy Director Doris Diaz. Diaz agreed with his concerns. However, two weeks after their conversation ended, Diaz suddenly resigned from her position.
An unnamed former senior official from the Social Security Bureau who participated in internal discussions revealed that many people within this agency share Skofields concerns. They believe that the real purpose of registering a large number of people in the death records is to exert economic pressure on immigrants to voluntarily leave their countries.
Once a death record is created, the person concerned will be unable to open a bank account, obtain credit, rent a house, save money, receive regular wages, or even purchase insurance or commercial medical insurance. This will have many devastating consequences, said the person involved.
Skofield said that when he and his team tried to find a legal way to comply with the requirements of the Department of Homeland Security, the staff at the Social Security Bureaus Chief Information Officers office acted without authorization, entering the death dates of those 6100 people.
A few weeks later, the Department of Homeland Security released another list, this time containing 2.7 million names.
According to the standard verification process, Skofield randomly selected 25 people to verify the authenticity of the list. After cross-verification, it was found that all the sampled individuals were still alive.
Among them were American citizens and legal permanent residents, as well as minors and elderly individuals. There was also a widow who had been receiving survivor benefits for a long time and who had legal residency rights. However, he had no means of verifying whether the people on that list were involved in criminal or terrorist activities, as claimed by the Department of Homeland Security.
With the verification results in hand, Skofield reported to a higher-ranking officialDeputy Commissioner Stephen Evangelista, who was responsible for carrying out the operations. The two then met with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
He also told Evangelista that this list and plan seemed to aim at forcing 2.7 million people living in the United States to leave the country. However, Evangelista disagreed with this conclusion. He immediately signaled to everyone in the conference room on the eighth floor to keep quiet, and then used his phone to call an official from the Department of Homeland Security to inquire further.
In hands-free calls, officials from the Department of Homeland Security responded in a rather straightforward manner: Their goal is to force those on the list to either choose self-repatriation or be arrested by law enforcement officers when they try to go to social security offices for help.
After the call ended, Evangelista remained silent and dismissed the meeting.
In October last year, when Skofield resigned from the Social Security Bureau, he did not intend to make any real-name reports. In accordance with legal requirements, he destroyed all the documents he had retained.
Skofield said that after receiving that shocking call, he only discussed the details with relatives, friends, and colleagues. Since he witnessed many public officials suffering from workplace retaliation during the Trump administration, he chose to remain silent.
It was not until a casual gathering in February this year that Skofield confided to another former federal official that he had been troubled by the situations he saw, as well as the exposure of social security data. The former federal official encouraged Skofield to step forward and expose the truth.
Skofield contacted several people who were aware of the situation, inviting them to collaborate in providing verifiable evidence for the claims made in the report. However, no one agreed to participate. Only one person agreed to assist, and did so anonymously, by submitting a complaint document to the Senate.
It is reported that this 49-page complaint document has been submitted to Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, as well as Richard Blumenthal, a senior senator from Connecticut and a Democrat.
Warren is the head of the Senate Democratic Social Security Task Force. In a statement sent to The Washington Post, she said, Trump has waged war against the U.S. social security system, and DOGE has been at the forefront of this war, spreading chaos and corruption everywhere. It seems that DOGE is trying to use the social security system illegally to implement Trumps cruel immigration policies.
According to reports, these two Democrats sent letters to the Social Security Bureau and three former DOGE members on Thursday, requesting detailed information regarding this matter.
As the attorney representing Skoffeld, Debra Katz, a renowned American whistleblower lawyer, stated that this report reveals a serious reality: The normal lives of all American citizens could be completely destroyed due to government data abuse.
This is a matter that involves all parties. Everyone, regardless of which political party they belong to, should insist on getting answers and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable, said Katz.
