WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead, canceling their Social Security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in an effort to get them to leave the country, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The move will make it much harder for those affected to use banks or other basic services where Social Security numbers are required. It’s part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to crack down on immigrants who were allowed to enter and remain temporarily in the United States under programs instituted by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
The Trump administration is moving the immigrants’ names and legally obtained Social Security numbers to a database that federal officials normally use to track the deceased, according to the two people familiar with the moves and their ramifications. They spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday night because the plans had not yet been publicly detailed.
The officials said stripping the immigrants of their Social Security numbers will cut them off from many financial services and encourage them to “self-deport” and abandon the U.S. for their birth countries.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the 6,000-plus immigrants were chosen. But the Trump White House has targeted people in the country temporarily under Biden-era programs, including more than 900,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. using that administration’s CBP One app.
The trouble will start when living US Citizens are accidentally added to the dead Social Security list and try to prove they are alive to a much reduced Social Security department.
Why is Schumer opposing this?
They’re trying to recruit Mr Wonderful to head up this task force. He’s well known to remark “Goodbye you’re dead to me”.