Whistleblower Reveals DOGE Plan to Falsely Mark Millions of People Dead to ‘Push Immigrants Out’

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump’s administration planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead in a push to make “immigrants so miserable that they self-deported,” a whistleblower alleges.

Former senior Social Security executive Jeremiah Schofield, who worked at the agency for over 20 years, claims in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to the Senate that the plan was part of Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts – though it was ultimately not carried out.

The effort would have barred people, including some U.S. citizens, from the country’s financial system, blocking them from receiving wages and government benefits.

Schofield claimed he “refused to help implement the plan after agency lawyers warned that falsely marking living people as dead could violate federal law,” according to a report from The Washington Post, which reviewed the disclosure and spoke with Schofield.

“Schofield said he realized the plan’s possible intent — to intimidate and worsen the finances of immigrants — as well as its potential unlawfulness after taking a sample of people from the 2.7 million and discovering they were all alive,” the report reads. “Some were U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, teenagers and senior citizens, including one widow who was a legal permanent resident receiving survivor benefits.”

The report continued:

Schofield’s whistleblower complaint describes a tumultuous period inside Social Security, as career officials questioned the legality of such efforts and watched DOGE officials gain access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases. In one meeting, Schofield said, a DOGE official working with the Department of Homeland Security described the goal of declaring 2.7 million living people dead: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.

“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield told The Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

An unnamed Social Security spokesperson told The Post in a statement that the agency “did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File,” the national database used to determine if someone has died.

“SSA maintains the highest level of internal controls. This includes having all appropriate policies and procedures in place to maintain the integrity and accuracy of agency records,” they said.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Lauren Bis did not address the plan directly, instead claiming that “information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.”

Earlier this year, another whistleblower also alleged misuse of Americans’ personal data at DOGE, claiming that a former DOGE staffer claimed he planned to share sensitive agency databases with his private employer. The staffer allegedly claimed to have access to the data through two databases called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” one of which he had on a thumb drive.

The former DOGE member allegedly said he continued to hold unrestricted “God-level” security access, along with his agency credentials and computer, even long after leaving DOGE, reportedly telling the whistleblower that he intended to use the data at the private company.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!