MW 'DOGE' wanted to declare 2.7 million people 'dead' at Social Security: whistleblower

By Jessica Hall

This is the third whistleblower to come forward about alleged illegal activity by Trump's Department of Government Efficiency

Marking someone as dead by Social Security cuts off their ability to work, use banking services or receive benefits.

The Trump administration planned to place 2.7 million living people in a so-called death file that would have cut off their ability to work, receive benefits or use banking services as part of an immigration-enforcement push, a former Social Security executive said in a whistleblower complaint.

Jeremiah Schofield, who worked at Social Security for 25 years before leaving the agency in October, refused to help with the plan after government lawyers warned that falsely marking living people as dead could violate federal law.

The latest whistleblower complaint, which was first reported by the Washington Post, comes after the Trump administration entity known as the Department of Government Efficiency embedded itself in the Social Security Administration last year with the stated aim of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. "DOGE," as Elon Musk dubbed the entity, has come under fire from two other whistleblowers for mishandling data and compromising the Social Security numbers of every American.

The Department of Homeland Security initially asked the Social Security Administration to mark about 6,000 living people as dead, and those people were added to the death file, according to the latest complaint. They were later removed from that database, the complaint said.

Then in April 2025, DHS transmitted to SSA a second list of 2.7 million individuals to be marked as dead, the whistleblower said.

Schofield expressed concern that the plan was part of an effort to "deport immigrants, regardless of whether they were suspected terrorists or convicted violent criminals," according to the complaint.

When asked why DHS wanted the 2.7 million people to be marked as dead, a DOGE worker said that "either the lives of these individuals would be ruined ... and they would be driven to 'self-deport'" or "they would have to go to a local Social Security office, at which point SSA field office staff would send them to DHS offices," where officials would "detain them for deportation," according to the whistleblower complaint.

The SSA, which pays about $1.5 trillion in benefits to more than 70.6 million people, including retirees, people with disabilities and children, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security, but this whistleblower report is the latest evidence of how he really views it: As nothing more than a weapon to wield against his enemies," said Nancy Altman, president of advocacy group Social Security Works. "Moving a living person to Social Security's death master file is financial murder. It means losing access to your bank account, your health insurance, and your credit cards. It means getting kicked out of your home. It means that your life is destroyed."

The new whistleblower complaint follows upheaval at the SSA under Trump's second administration. The SSA has cut about 7,000 jobs, or 12% of its workforce, closed regional offices, made several leadership changes and modified its phone customer-service system. It has also encouraged beneficiaries to use online services, despite access issues faced by some older adults and people with disabilities.

"Donald Trump has waged war on Social Security, and DOGE has been the tip of the spear, sowing chaos and corruption everywhere," U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. "This looks like an illegal attempt by DOGE to weaponize Social Security to carry out Trump's cruel immigration agenda."

In the same statement, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said: "Thanks to this brave whistleblower's disclosure, we have more evidence that the Trump Administration used DOGE not just to recklessly slash government programs - they were looking for ways to purposefully hurt people, especially immigrants."

-Jessica Hall

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June 05, 2026 13:26 ET (17:26 GMT)

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