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President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during an Iftar dinner in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, Thursday, March 27, 2025 (Pool via AP).
The Trump administration had rejected a federal judge’s request to make the acting Social Security Administration (SSA) commissioner available for a hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction barring the agency from granting the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to the personally identifiable information of millions of Americans.
The decision to prevent acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek from testifying comes on the heels of the administration adding more than 6,000 living migrants to the SSA’s “death master file” — effectively canceling their social security number — in an effort to force them to self-deport.
The death master file is used to keep track of individuals who die and should no longer receive benefits. The migrants who were recently added to the list had been in the U.S. legally, but had their status revoked by the administration, according to reporting from The New York Times. The repurposing of the list would leave the “financial lives” of those on it “terminated,” Dudek reportedly wrote in an email to staff.
Attorneys for the Justice Department on Monday informed U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander of Maryland that instead of allowing Dudek to testify, they will “rest their opposition to Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on the information contained in briefing, stated at oral argument, and in the administrative record produced by the Social Security Administration.”
Earlier in the day, Hollander had referenced the Times reporting in a letter to counsel explaining why she wanted Dudek to testify (citations removed):
Acting SSA Commissioner Dudek stated during a telephone hearing on March 27, 2025, that the SSA DOGE Team is working on a project involving the “master death record.” But, the Administrative Record does not “correspond to what was described in the news.” Because testimony from Mr. Dudek “may be helpful as to the various SSA projects that Mr. Dudek has referenced …,” the Court has asked the government to produce Mr. Dudek at the P.I. hearing, “in order to clarify information that has been provided.”
The lawsuit, one of a flurry against DOGE since Trump created the organization, was filed in February by a coalition of national labor organizations along with a grassroots advocacy group. The complaint alleged that the Trump administration and DOGE employees, in particular, were being granted unfettered access to the Social Security computer systems in breach of privacy laws.
Hollander previously admonished the federal government and DOGE over the assertion that access to Americans’ confidential personal information in the SSA database was necessary, stating that the Elon Musk-led organization was essentially on a “fishing expedition” to make good on the baseless claims of widespread fraud coming from the Trump administration.
Also on Monday, the former acting chief of staff to Dudek, Tiffany Flick, submitted a four-page declaration explaining the operation of the death master file and what happens when a living person’s name is added to the file.
According to Flick, who worked at the agency for nearly 30 years before retiring in January, claims of widespread fraud in the social security system are baseless, as only about one-third of 1% of approximately 2.9 million deaths recorded annually require correcting.
Flick also asserted that the administration’s decision to repurpose the death master file in an effort to make good on Trump’s promise to crack down on immigrants was unprecedented.
“Intentionally marking people who are still living as dead in the Numident and/or Death Master File is unheard of and improper,” Flick said in her declaration. “For people erroneously recorded as dead, the consequences are severe.”
Flick insisted that a living person who is added to the death master file will see their loans terminated, bank accounts closed, medical coverage ended, and life insurance canceled, among other things. It would also prevent them from obtaining a job, accessing other federal benefits, and filing tax returns. Some may even end up being arrested for identity theft, she said in the sworn statement.
“Applications and renewals for CHIP, Basic Health Program, Affordable Care Act, and Multi-State Plan insurance coverage will likely be rejected,” Flick said. “SNAP applications and recertification will likely be discontinued, as state SNAP agencies use data from the DMF — accessed through SSA data exchanges — to process those applications.”
Democratic Reps. Richard Neal, of Massachusetts, and John Larson, of Connecticut, last week decried the measure in a joint statement, saying that the individuals being placed on the death master file “aren’t being afforded due process.”
“If they cancel the Social Security number of one person, where do they stop?” the statement says. “The Trump Administration’s weaponization of Social Security is shocking and unconscionable, and we expect House Republicans will remain silent. If you care about Social Security, you need to raise your voice because, despite what he says, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the biggest threat to people and their earned benefits.”
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