Last week, the Associated Press (AP) reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will be given access to the personal records of 79 million people enrolled in Medicaid in order to facilitate the ongoing mass deportation operation. This is a major attack on the democratic and privacy rights of the entire working class.
According to the AP, the agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), overseen by Secretary Kristi Noem, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), led by television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, will provide ICE agents with the ability to locate “aliens” across the country by cross-referencing personal health, medical and location data.
The database to which ICE is seeking access has “names, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid.” The AP reported that “ICE will use the CMS data to allow ICE to receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE.”
Private information, including Social Security numbers, will be in the hands not only of fascistic ICE officials, but there is a real possibility it will end up in the hands of private companies that have facilitated the rise of Trump and growth of fascism in the US such as Palantir.
Palantir is currently led by pro-genocide Zionist CEO Alex Karp, while major Trump and Republican Party donor Peter Thiel is on the board of Palantir and serves at its chairman. Thiel called for Trump’s election at the 2016 Republican National Convention and has donated millions to Trump and other far-right candidates, including Vice President JD Vance.
Thiel’s support for Trump has been paid back in kind with generous government contracts. In 2014, Palantir became the primary data analytics provider for ICE through the creation of the Investigative Case Management System (ICM). After an initial $41 million contract, ICE renewed its agreement with Palantir to expand and develop ICM for another five years for $90 million.
The ICM system collates data from several federal, state and private databases to build dossiers used to plan raids and kidnappings. Prior to last week’s announcement, ICM databases already had access to enormous amounts of private data, including Department of Motor Vehicle driver’s license databases, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and IRS tax data.
Importantly, the latest agreement follows an April 2025 contract in which ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million to develop the Immigration Lifecyle Operating System or “ImmigrationOS.” The contract says the system will provide near “real-time visibility” on people self-deporting from the US. The system would allegedly allow ICE agents to prioritize and locate “visa overstays” for removal.
The integration of Medicaid records into the immigration police state apparatus will also serve as a deterrent for those who might otherwise apply for Medicaid benefits they rightly deserve and are entitled to.
In an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning, acting ICE director Todd Lyons claimed that nearly 150,000 people have been deported by ICE this year. In response to mass anger among broad layers of the population towards the ongoing kidnapping operations, Lyons complained that a “sharp increase in rhetoric from election officials” was responsible for growing anger at the immigration Gestapo’s activities.
Lyons promised ICE would continue the practice of “collateral arrests,” meaning immigration police will target friends and family members during raids. He also defended ICE agents wearing masks while kidnapping workers and community members. “I’m not a proponent of the masks,” he said. “However, if that’s a tool for the men and women of ICE to keep themselves and their families safe, then I will allow it.”
Pennsylvania grandfather deported after losing green card
Among the roughly 150,000 human beings who have been deported this year is Luis Leon, an 82-year-old grandfather from Allentown, Pennsylvania, born in Chile. In 1987, Leon was granted political asylum in the United States after having been tortured by the US-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Despite being legally allowed to remain in the US, as he has for nearly 40 years, Leon was secretly deported to Guatemala last month after he attempted to obtain a new green card in Philadelphia after losing his wallet.
Leon is not a citizen of Guatemala. Yet, according to his family members, he was deported to the country some time after June 20. A relative of Leon’s from Chile confirmed to family members this past Friday that Leon was sent to a detention center in Minnesota before being deported to Guatemala.
In a thoroughly criminal operation, first reported by the Morning Call, Leon, a beloved family and community member, was handcuffed by ICE agents at the Philadelphia office when he and his wife went there to get a replacement green card. Family members told the Morning Call that upon arrival at the station, ICE officers handcuffed Leon and took him away without explanation.
Leon’s wife said she was also held by agents for 10 hours until Leon’s granddaughter was able to come and secure her release.
Family members said that after Leon was taken they were given no update on his whereabouts. For many days after receiving a bizarre phone call from an unknown woman, Leon’s family thought he was dead.
On July 9, the unknown caller told Leon’s wife that he had died. The same woman had previously called the family after Leon was detained purporting to be an immigration lawyer.
Anxiety over Leon’s whereabouts and health were compounded by the fact that his name never appeared in the ICE Locator database.
Natly, one of Leon’s grandchildren, is flying to the hospital in Guatemala where Leon is currently located. While he is known as the neighborhood handyman, he suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and has a heart condition.
Family members stressed that Leon is in the country legally and has never committed a crime. The Morning Call noted that a search of court records confirmed this assertion.
US citizen and veteran speaks out after being held without charges for three days by immigration police
Following a militarized July 10 immigration raid on a marijuana farm in California that left one worker, Jaime Alanís García, dead, George Retes Jr., a 25-year-old US Army veteran and father of two who was detained illegally for three days, is speaking out.
In an interview with CNN Sunday, Retes detailed his horrific experience after he was kidnapped and held without charges by immigration agents.
Retes recalled to CNN that he told agents, “I was a US citizen. That I worked there, that I was trying to go to work. I mentioned that I was a veteran, I told them all these things, that I wasn’t a part of the protest. I’m not there to fight them, I was just trying to get to work.”
Retes continued, “They didn’t care. They all just started yelling at me and started getting hostile.”
Even though Retes was trying to leave the scene, masked and militarized agents surrounded his vehicle, smashed the window and dragged him out. He was doused with pepper spray despite posing no threat and not having been a target. Retes said that after he was kidnapped by ICE, he was told nothing and was not allowed access to an attorney.
“They didn’t let me call anyone. They didn’t let me talk to a lawyer, they didn’t even let me shower when I was covered in tear gas,” he said, adding, “My body was burning.”
Retes was put on “suicide watch” because he was upset that agents would not release him to allow him to attend his daughter’s third birthday. “It’s hard, if I’m being honest,” he said. “I will never get that chance, to know that I wasn’t there, wasn’t able to get her a gift. So it’s a terrible feeling.”
Retes said that even though he was a veteran, “That shouldn’t matter. … it shouldn’t matter if I am a citizen or not. Or the color of my skin. No one should be treated that way at all.”