ICE Shared Medicaid Data With Palantir After Improper CMS Transfer

Democratic attorneys general disclosed on July 17 that ICE shared a Medicaid dataset with Palantir after the data had been improperly transferred from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The motion filed in federal court in California states that the January 7 dataset included information on millions of people, among them U.S. citizens and individuals lawfully present in the country.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria had ruled in December 2025 that CMS could share certain Medicaid details on immigrants without lawful status from the suing states. He temporarily halted broader data sharing in late May after learning that CMS had exceeded the limits of that order.

One of the datasets transferred in January contained records of U.S. citizens who were refugees in Minnesota. The Justice Department informed the court last week that CMS had inadvertently reshared the same January 7 dataset with ICE during an effort to transmit data from states not involved in the lawsuit.

Alberto Briseno, section chief for ICE Homeland Security Investigations, stated in a declaration that personnel deleted the file after discovery and that it was not used for enforcement. A later search found copies held by half a dozen additional ICE users.

Briseno noted technological difficulties in locating every variation of the file and said ICE would continue efforts to delete any remaining copies.

A declaration from California deputy attorney general Anna Rich described the data being transmitted over a Microsoft Teams chat before deletion from that platform. A discovery document shows a redacted transcript of ICE personnel requesting that Palantir delete the file. The Department of Justice is asking Judge Chhabria to expand the categories of noncitizens whose data ICE may receive.