Trump officials planned to declare 2,7 million living people dead: why they needed to do this

The Donald Trump administration considered declaring 2,7 million living people dead (including both US citizens and green card holders). The goal was to take away their financial control and force them to leave the US, according to a former top administrator at the US Social Security Administration, according to The Washington Post.

A former senior US Social Security official said the plan, which was never implemented, would have used a database of deceased people to force immigrants to leave the country.

This plan had not been previously announced. According to agency representatives, it was never implemented. However, it was intended to use one of the key government databases used for identity verification, effectively "wiping" people out of the financial system. This could have deprived them of wages, access to banking services, government benefits, and other services.

On the subject: The Trump administration has brought in agencies that have never done so before to handle immigration enforcement.

Jeremiah Schofield, who worked for Social Security for 25 years and modernized IT systems before leaving in October, said he refused to participate in the plan. Agency lawyers warned that classifying living people as deceased could violate federal law. Schofield noted that he realized the potential goal of intimidating immigrants and worsening their financial situation, as well as the illegality of the plan, when he checked a sample of 2,7 million people and discovered that all were alive. Among them were U.S. citizens, green card holders, teenagers, and the elderly, including a widow with permanent residence who was receiving survivors' benefits.

Schofield laid out the details in a 49-page statement shared with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the House Investigations Subcommittee. The document provides the most detailed description yet of how employees of the Elon Musk-linked Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) attempted to use Social Security data to implement President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Last year, the Social Security Administration conducted a scaled-down version of a similar operation: 6100 immigrants were added to the so-called "Dead File"—a database used by banks, employers, and government agencies to verify a person's survival. Some of these people later returned to agency offices to prove their survival, and their records were restored.

In a written statement, an anonymous Social Security Administration spokesperson noted that the agency "did not add the 2,7 million individuals to the death database." The spokesperson added that the agency has strict internal control procedures in place to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the data.

The whistleblower's complaint describes a tense atmosphere within the agency: employees questioned the legality of the situation and observed DOGE representatives accessing the most sensitive government databases. At one meeting, according to Schofield, a DOGE employee working with the US Department of Homeland Security directly explained the goal: to make life so miserable for immigrants that they would leave on their own or report to social security offices, where they could be detained.

"It was one of the most terrifying conversations I've had in my 25 years of work," Schofield admitted. "I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing."

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Lauren Bies did not respond to questions about the plan, but said information sharing between agencies is necessary and criticized the Biden administration's immigration policies.

"Data exchange between agencies is necessary to understand who is in the country, including dangerous criminals, as well as to assess security and terrorism threats and determine what government payments foreigners receive at taxpayer expense," she explained.

Over the past year, two more whistleblowers have reported problems with DOGE accessing Americans' personal data. One of them, former Chief Data Officer Charles Borges, claimed that employees transferred data through third-party services and stored personal information in the cloud. Another whistleblower told the inspector that a DOGE employee allegedly stole a flash drive containing Americans' data and gave it to a private company. This incident is currently under investigation.

When Schofield left the agency last October, he had no intention of becoming a whistleblower. Jeremiah complied with the law and destroyed the documents in his possession. Schofield told his family and colleagues about what had happened, but otherwise remained silent and watched as other government officials faced pressure within the Trump administration.

Several months later, in February, at a meeting with former colleagues, he admitted that he continued to think about how Social Security data had been compromised. He was then persuaded to speak publicly about it.

He tried to find people willing to publicly confirm his claims, but no one agreed. An anonymous individual helped file a complaint with the Senate, but journalists were unable to identify him.

"I think it's wrong to treat people this way, and right now we need to support each other," Schofield said.

Many warning signs

When DOGE employees first showed up at the Social Security Administration headquarters in February 2025, Schofield initially expected cooperation and hoped they would help modernize the outdated systems.

He joined the agency in 2000. Early in his career, he worked with clients and eventually became the head of IT modernization. Jeremiah saw how the program, which serves 75 million recipients, including pensioners, people with disabilities, widows, and orphans, could be improved, and he came to the first meeting with ideas.

However, even then, he had his suspicions. According to him, DOGE employees—Antonio Gracias, John Koval, and Peyton Rehling—were posing as volunteers. They weren't using the standard agency-issued laptops. They acted as if they had already seen data, access to which is usually strictly restricted.

“A lot of alarm bells were raised,” he assured.

Gracias, a longtime acquaintance of Elon Musk, has previously appeared with him at public events where they made false claims about the Social Security system, including claims that millions of illegal immigrants were receiving benefits and voting in elections.

More than a month after the DOGE employees arrived, a federal court temporarily barred them from accessing Social Security Administration data, but the Supreme Court overturned the injunction in June. According to Schofield, it was around then that Gracias, Koval, and Rehling left the agency, though other DOGE employees remained.

Gracias' lawyer, Alex Spiro, said his client was unaware of the plan to declare 2,7 million people dead. Koval and Rehling declined to comment.

In early April 2025, then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent two memos to Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek asking him to prevent the use of Social Security numbers by "suspected terrorists in the country illegally."

Along with these documents, the agency received a list of 6100 people who were proposed to be effectively “excluded” from financial records.

Schofield contacted the Department of Law, where he was told that falsifying records was illegal and could violate federal data retention regulations. He discussed the situation with his superior, Acting Deputy Commissioner Doris Diaz, who shared his concerns. However, two weeks later, she abruptly left the agency. Diaz did not respond to journalists' inquiries.

Leland Dudek, speaking to The Washington Post, confirmed that he had heard doubts about the legality of adding living people to the database of deceased individuals. As a result, he said, he renamed the file, replacing the word "death" with "unfitness":

"Death is a state of unfitness."

According to one former agency employee, many believed the plan was intended to create financial pressure to force immigrants to leave the country.

"If you're on this file, you can't open a bank account, get a loan, rent a place to live, save money, get paid, or get insurance," he explained.

While Schofield and his team were trying to find a legal way to fulfill the Department of Homeland Security's request, one of the IT staffers entered death data for those 6100 people into the database.

A few weeks later, at the end of April 2025, the Department of Homeland Security released a new list – this time for 2,7 million people.

Schofield decided to test a sample of 25 individuals—a standard procedure for assessing new data. He said the analysis showed that many of them, U.S. citizens and green card holders, were alive. He was unable to verify whether these individuals were connected to crime or terrorism, as the agency claimed.

Jeremiah reported his findings to then-Deputy Commissioner for Operations Stephen Evangelista, and they arranged a meeting with Koval, who by then was working at the Department of Homeland Security.

Schofield outlined his findings and proposed further investigation. Koval agreed.

Immediately after the meeting, Schofield told Evangelista that he believed the list was intended to force 2,7 million people to leave the country. Evangelista disagreed and, right there in the conference room, put Koval on speakerphone and called him back.

Koval, according to Schofield, bluntly explained that people would either leave on their own or go to social security offices, where law enforcement could detain them.

After this conversation, Schofield felt his fears confirmed, but he was shocked by what he heard. Evangelista made no comment, and the meeting ended.

Senate Democrats demand explanations

The whistleblower's statement sparked a sharp reaction from Democrats, who said their concerns about the Trump administration's actions had been confirmed.

"Donald Trump is waging war on the Social Security system, and DOGE has become a tool for sowing chaos and corruption," Warren concluded. She described this as an illegal attempt to use the system to implement harsh immigration policies.

Blumenthal said he was demanding clarification on how the social security system could have been used for these purposes.

"Thanks to this courageous whistleblower, we have further evidence that the Trump administration has used DOGE not only to recklessly cut government programs, but also to intentionally harm people, especially immigrants," he concluded.

Both senators sent letters to the Social Security Administration and three former DOGE employees demanding clarification.

White House spokesperson Liz Huston declined to directly address questions about the death database and DOGE. Instead, she pointed to the tax break for seniors, which was enacted as part of a major tax law.

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Schofield's lawyers—renowned whistleblower expert Debra Katz and the advocacy group Whistleblower Aid—handed over his materials to Democratic senators. This followed reports of political pressure on inspectors and concerns about potential retaliation.

They noted that the story shows how, if government data is misused, the life of any person, regardless of their status, can be seriously disrupted.

"This is an issue that concerns everyone, regardless of political views. People must demand answers and hold themselves accountable," Katz said.

In court documents filed last month, the Trump administration stated that DOGE employees no longer have access to the databases as of the beginning of the year.

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