- calendar_today August 13, 2025
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced a major new effort to crack down on public health insurance programs and remove illegal immigrants from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The move, which was first reported by CMS officials, is one of the most aggressive actions to date taken by the Trump administration in his second term to restrict taxpayer-funded safety-net benefits to U.S. citizens and legal residents.
CMS, the HHS agency that administers Medicaid and CHIP, will soon begin sending monthly enrollment reports to each state. The reports will identify enrollees in Medicaid and CHIP for whom immigration or citizenship status is “unverifiable” by federal databases. Immigration or citizenship status can be verified through a number of federal systems, including the Social Security Administration’s databases, as well as the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, known as SAVE.
“The first reports were sent out today, and every month, each state will receive its own report,” according to the agency.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the agency has an obligation to prevent taxpayer-funded dollars from going to those who are not legally eligible to receive the benefits.
“This new action will help to prevent the misappropriation of taxpayer dollars and abuse of Medicaid and CHIP while ensuring that only eligible individuals have access to coverage and care through these programs,” said Kennedy in a statement.
Oz said that every misspent dollar “is a dollar diverted from an eligible, vulnerable individual in need of Medicaid and CHIP. As such, this action is an important step in our commitment to program integrity and the responsible use of taxpayer funds.”
CMS officials did not say whether the new reports would be used to refer cases to immigration authorities.
However, the move follows closely on a similar action by the Trump administration last month to turn over enrollee data to immigration authorities, which a federal judge has since put on hold. The Trump administration had been sharing enrollee data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help the agency with deportation efforts, but a federal judge in New York ruled the department was overstepping its authority in sharing enrollee information.
States will also be subject to new statutory requirements for the first time under Republican funding legislation passed last month. Under that spending package, states are now required to conduct eligibility checks on Medicaid enrollees at least twice per year, rather than once every three years, as has previously been the case.
CMS officials did not respond to a request for comment on how quickly states would need to comply with data checks from the new reports. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that it could take the agency up to a decade to run back eligibility checks on the approximately 76 million Medicaid enrollees.
CMS Initiative Comes Amid Legal Battle with Democratic Attorneys General
The CMS action comes as the federal government is engaged in a legal battle with more than two dozen Democratic attorneys general over efforts to enforce similar eligibility checks on federal benefit programs.
Last month, a coalition of more than two dozen Democratic attorneys general led by New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit over new eligibility rules for the federal government.
The group of attorneys general is challenging new federal rules mandating that states conduct eligibility checks on beneficiaries of all federal programs that receive public benefits, as defined by HHS. The department expanded the definition of public benefits last month, as part of the agency’s effort to target illegal immigrants.
That new eligibility check requirement is just one part of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to target illegal immigrants in recent weeks. In addition to ordering the data referral to ICE, Trump has also moved to order DHS and the Department of Justice to review more than 300 federal benefit programs for which illegal immigrants can receive benefits.
One of Trump’s first executive orders when he was sworn in for a second term in February was an order for agencies to review all federal programs and identify any where non-citizens could be eligible for benefits in violation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
Another executive order was to order to require federal agencies to review all public programs and cut benefits to any non-citizens who were not legally eligible to receive the public funds.
The Republican pushback over public benefits is not limited to Trump and the HHS. A group of more than a dozen Republican attorneys general last month sent a letter to congressional leadership opposing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal, which would extend the Earned Income Tax Credit to non-citizens who are living in the country illegally. The Republican attorneys general argued it is unfair to taxpaying citizens who are eligible for the program.
Proponents of the CMS effort argue that the move will ensure that the programs are reserved only for eligible citizens and lawful residents, while opponents say it will put up roadblocks to enrollment.
Democrats have been quick to criticize the administration’s moves on illegal immigration, but the Trump administration has gotten the support of former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was tapped to lead the Justice Department earlier this year.
Becerra, who is now the U.S. attorney general, argued in a statement that states “have the discretion to design and operate a system to verify [eligibility] information and to build on these systems over time.”
Democrats have been aggressive in court in trying to stop the administration from enforcing eligibility requirements. But Becerra said the administration will make sure illegal immigrants are not receiving public benefits.
“This rule will ensure federal dollars go to those who are lawfully entitled to those benefits by closing gaping loopholes and ending the plain disregard for our nation’s immigration laws that have allowed illegal aliens to access government benefits at taxpayer expense,” Becerra said.
