A former Social Security executive is raising major alarms after claiming the Trump administration considered a plan that could have marked 2.7 million living people as dead in federal records. The alleged DOGE plan, first reported by The Washington Post and later detailed by NewsNation, centered on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File and immigration enforcement.
According to a whistleblower disclosure from Jeremiah Schofield, a former senior Social Security official who spent more than 25 years at the agency, the request came from the Department of Homeland Security and involved Elon Musk’s DOGE team. The goal, according to the disclosure, was not simply a records update. Schofield alleged the plan would have placed targeted individuals into the government’s death database to pressure them to self-deport or show up at Social Security offices, where immigration officials could potentially locate them.
That is where the situation gets even more serious. The Death Master File is not some random government spreadsheet. The Social Security Administration says its death information files can include a deceased person’s Social Security number, name, date of birth, and date of death, and the full file is shared with certain federal and state agencies. A mistaken death listing can create real-world fallout, especially when banks, benefit systems, employers, and government agencies rely on death records to verify identity.
Schofield told The Washington Post the proposal stunned him. “That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
In the 49-page disclosure, Schofield said he reviewed a sample of 25 names from the 2.7 million-person list that DHS allegedly wanted marked as deceased. According to the disclosure cited by NewsNation, most of the people he reviewed were either U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. The disclosure stated, “At a minimum, none of the 25 people were dead.”
Schofield refused to carry out the plan, and agency lawyers advised that the effort would be illegal, according to the disclosure. The Social Security Administration told NewsNation that the agency did not add the 2.7 million names to the Death Master File.
DHS did not directly address the specific allegations in its statement to NewsNation. Instead, a spokesperson defended interagency data sharing, saying it 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.”
The disclosure also lands while DOGE’s access to Social Security data remains under scrutiny. In March, The Washington Post reported that Social Security’s internal watchdog was investigating a separate whistleblower complaint alleging that a former DOGE engineer claimed he had access to two restricted Social Security databases and had at least one on a thumb drive. AP also reported that the inspector general opened a probe into alleged misuse of SSA data by a former DOGE employee.
For now, the 2.7 million names were not added to the death database. Still, the disclosure adds another layer to the ongoing fight over immigration enforcement, personal data, and how much power government systems hold over everyday life. One wrong click in a federal database can follow a person everywhere. According to this whistleblower, millions of living people came closer than the public knew.
