According to a press release from New York District 9’s U.S. Representative Yvette D. Clarke, national Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continues to share private data beyond court-approved limits.
Along with Reps. Robin Kelly, Nannette Barragán and Emily Randall, Clarke — a Brooklyn-native representing parts of Flatbush, Crown Heights and Park Slope — led 49 members of congress to send a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. They called for an immediate end to the data sharing and follow-up actions to hold parties accountable and to prevent data sharing in the future.
According to the letter, 14 percent of immigrant adults, including those who have legal status, reported that they or their family has avoided medical care since January 2025 due to immigration-related fears.
“The role of HHS should be to protect the health of all those living in this country and provide essential human services, not to be a watchdog for DHS or act as immigration enforcement,” members stated in the letter.
The letter is not their first — 33 Members of congress submitted a prior letter to Secretary Kennedy and Administrator Oz in July of 2025. “To date,” representatives wrote this week, “HHS has not adequately responded to that letter.”
“Since our original letter,” they wrote, “further reporting and litigation brought by over twenty State Attorneys General have revealed that our concerns were, if anything, understated."
Representatives say that data-sharing was designed to give ICE access to all 79 million Medicaid enrollees. Although a December 2025 injunction allowed for a small category of data sharing to continue, Representatives say CMS has “blatantly disregarded the limits of this order.”
Outlined demands directed at the HHS and CMS include: ceasing to share personally identifiable Medicaid data with ICE, providing Congress access to all instances since July of 2025 when CMS shared data beyond its authorization to the DHS, ICE or private companies and detailing the mechanisms in place to prevent further unauthorized data use.
Congress members request a response from the Secretary and Administrator by no later than Oct. 5, 2026, less than a month from the letter’s release date.
