Comment by kjellsbells

13 days ago

FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.

Then again, we have ICE shooting American citizens in the streets, so I guess the law is whatever they decide it is, not least because our legislative branch is uninterested in laws.

https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1191...

> FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.

Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to. Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

  • > Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to

    How would this even work? You can’t just start billing things to Medicaid if you’re ineligible for it. That would be like you deciding to bill United Healthcare for something despite not being a customer. How is this hypothetical fraud supposed to work? What am I missing?

    > Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

    ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid. They’re trying to use records to find people to detain and deport which is an orthogonal dataset.

    The only plausible explanation is that they’re using medical records as an additional source of data on people who live in houses that they’re raiding or looking at.

    Which is insane. Imagine police rolling up to your front door on suspicion of something and loading up a system which has your medical records.

  • > Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to

    Why are you presuming this? There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.

    > Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

    If it is being honest about it's intention, yes. I think we have seen an absolute mountain of evidence that this administration does "audits" as massive data collection waves to suit any and every purpose they want, though.

    If this was about fixing things being done incorrectly, DHHS should be doing the audit, not DHS. Perhaps the latter doesn't understand the difference between the two, though, not noticing they're missing an H in their abbreviation.

    • > There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.

      Isn't the point of this data so that they can uncover exactly that? It'd be silly to say you're not allowed to look for evidence of anything unless you already have evidence of it. Also, the qualifier "in any widespread fashion" is weasel words. It makes me think you already know it is happening, and the only remaining question is to what scale.

      4 replies →

I just want to clarify why this is not so straightforward. It really depends on how the term “illegal alien” is defined.

Before BBB July 4, Medicare covered the following groups:

- Refugees

- Asylum seekers

- Immigration parolees

- TPS holders

- DACA recipients

Under the Trump administration, the following groups are now considered illegal aliens:

- Asylum seekers with pending claims or those whose claims were denied

- Immigration parolees

- Certain categories of TPS holders (for example South Sudanese TPS ended Jan 6 2026 so all people under that protection are ordered to leave)

- Certain categories of DACA recipients

And the above people are probably registered for medicare with full name and address.

  • OOC do you have any sources for what the current administration considers illegal aliens?

    Genuinely curious if they've published this information.

bear in mind that ICE are forcibly deporting people in the process of applying for green cards whose lawyers have assured them that a lapsed VISA isn't an issue (it never used to be) as they have married an American citizen and maybe even have children with them.

A robotics engineer from Germany was forcibly deported a few months back because ICE were waiting for him at the immigration office when he went to visit to further the application.

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  • Literally would not matter if he were violent prior to being shot. By the time that they shot him, he was face down on the floor and disarmed. That’s illegal in basically any context. It’s an execution.

  • Except neither of the two most prominent people shot were fighting LEA. They were opposing illegal actions of ICE but they were not fighting

    • He opposed ICE by ... peacefully kneeling over, surrendering his arms, offering his head for execution, and going out with a quiet whimper.

      It's likely a strong moral boost to ICE; I think he helped than more than hurt them. They're emboldened now that they know their opponents will just hand over their guns and die.

      1 reply →

They're also not eligible to be living in the US, yet here we are.

  • And yet we do nothing to punish the actual criminals, the employees who knowingly higher then abuse them. Why don't we deport Trump, Trump tower wouldn't even be around without polish workers who were here illegally