John,
The Social Security Administration was built to serve workers, retirees, survivors, and people with disabilities. It was not built to power mass surveillance or turbocharge deportation operations. Yet right now, SSA leadership is preparing to plug its records into DHS’s sprawling SAVE database, a system already used to target immigrants, deny benefits, and flag people for wrongful voter purges. This is a profound corruption of SSA’s mission.
Feeding millions of personal records into SAVE hands ICE a powerful new tool to hunt people across agencies. Social Security data was entrusted to the government to administer benefits. If this expansion moves forward, that trust will be weaponized against immigrant communities, and anyone swept into an error-filled system with a long history of false matches and discriminatory outcomes.
This expansion also strikes at the integrity of voting rights. SAVE has already been used by states trying to purge eligible voters from the rolls. Adding SSA data gives those efforts even more fuel. Bureaucratic errors will hit immigrants, naturalized citizens, seniors, and low-income voters hardest.
The good news is that we can stop this. SSA is accepting public comments until December 12. They need to hear overwhelming opposition before they make a choice that will entrench surveillance, intensify deportations, and damage the most fundamental elements of democracy.
Tell the Social Security Administration to reject the SAVE expansion and stop weaponizing Social Security data against immigrants and voters. Submit your official comment now.
Turning SSA into a data pipeline for ICE undermines the very foundation of public benefits programs. People will fear applying for help. Families will avoid crucial services. Immigrants will be denied access to basic supports.
We have watched other agencies fall to political pressure and mission creep. We cannot allow the same fate for SSA. Its credibility depends on independence from immigration enforcement and from partisan attacks on voting rights. If this proposal succeeds, it will set a precedent for even broader data sharing and accelerate an already dangerous surveillance architecture.
The December 12 deadline is the only formal chance we have to put this shift on record. Public comments matter. They create legal and political pressure that agencies cannot ignore. A wave of opposition can prevent this expansion before it becomes an entrenched tool of the deportation regime.
Send your comment now and tell SSA to keep Social Security data out of ICE’s hands and out of voter suppression schemes.
Together, we can stop this data grab and defend both immigrant communities and our democracy.
- DFA AF Team
