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Sunday, March 23, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans ... read more


On the night of Saturday, March 15, three planes touched down in El Salvador, carrying 261 men deported from the United States. A few dozen were Salvadoran, but most of the men were Venezuelans the Trump Administration had designated as gang members and deported, with little or no due process. I was there to document their arrival. read more


A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to expand information-sharing across federal agencies as well as between federal and state governments, but civil libertarians and other experts are warning that the main purpose is to help normalize how the Department of Government Efficiency is handling government data.


An internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo, sent on March 13 and obtained by Popular Information, details proposed changes to the claims process that would debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.


Friday, March 21, 2025

An Orange County couple that came to the United States without authorization some 35 years ago, raised three daughters and now have a new grandson were deported to Colombia earlier this week, according to media reports. read more


Comments

In related news:

"Deport every person under the sun": ICE detains Cubans during immigration appointments

Cuba doesn't consistently accept American deportation flights--as many as 42,000 Cuban nationals remain in the U.S. despite having deportation orders. That means that deportation to Cuba is a headache for the federal government. Several Latin American countries have agreed to accept U.S. deportees from other countries, and experts warn that Cubans could also be sent to Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. Under a deal it brokered with the Biden administration, Mexico already takes back Cubans who arrive at the southwest border. An El Salvador mega-prison recently received hundreds of Venezuelans as part of a deal the Trump administration made with Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele last month.

Lawyers note that for South Florida's Cuban community, many of whom supported Trump's presidential campaign, the rapid immigration enforcement changes may come as a surprise.

"People come out in favor of the face-eating leopards," Prada said. "And then they get surprised when the leopard eats their face."

The detainment of Cubans by ICE in Miramar is stoking fear in South Florida's immigrant community, said Allen, a Miami immigration attorney for over three decades. He said he believes the Trump administration is trying to "intimidate" people and cause panic so they voluntarily return to their home countries.

The panic, however, isn't only affecting immigrants, Allen said. Immigration officers are being pressured for not detaining enough people, and judges and government lawyers are also being strong-armed into rejecting people's efforts to stay in the U.S.

www.miamiherald.com

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social

The first and most important thing to know about last night's Exec order is that it's intended to break current law and allow people throughout the federal gov look at yr tax returns. Beyond that it's intended to compel states to turn over all their data to the fed govt.

2/ Taken together it's intended to create big data sets about targeted citizens for various kinds of harassment, intimidation, prosecutorial abuse etc. Very standard big brother stuff. Much of it is against current law. But more generally, when you pay taxes you give the govt info for ...

3/ for the specific purpose of collecting taxes, not to use for other reasons. This isn't some vague concept. It's the law. Similarly, when you indirectly give medical information, it's for the purposes of either anonymized public health data or for reimbursement through Medicare/Medicaid, etc.

4/ The point is the information is provided for specific lawful reasons and "silo'd" inside the government precisely because it's provided only for that reason. The aim of this new EO is to create thick packets of data on targeted individuals, for a different kind of federal govt that aims ....

5/ to punish or go to war with people who don't do as the incumbent president says or refuse to support the president. It goes back to the foundations of the civil compact itself. We choose elected officials to serve the public and do so impartially. The Trump model is you get executive ...

6/ power and use it to go to war with the people who don't support you.

7/ Final point. In general, I don't like to "AI" every issue. But here it has some relevance. These are potentially very big data sets across many aspects of life, economic transactions, medical records, political activity, educational records. It's very much the kind of stuff you'd want to pour ...

8/ machine learning/AI models and generate lists of people who might be inclined to oppose the incumbent President and then financial resources, social networks, etc that wld make them powerful opponents. We shld be assuming this kind of administration will already be doing stuff like that ...

9/ with data that can be purchased commercially - the kind of profiles generated by sales data, social media graphs and so forth. But there's a reason why IRS data is so prized and guarded. Sure you can buy a lot of data abt anyone just for a price. But when you layer on IRS data, medical records...

10/ you go to a whole new level. This stuff is deeply inculcated in the career staff at the IRS. Very, very strict need to know barriers to access to tax and financial data. There's been a steady flow of firings and resignations at IRS over the last six weeks as DOGE keeps demanding more access ...

11/ to data and more specifically as they demand that law enforcement and ICE get access to tax records. Now it's important to be clear here. When there's a criminal investigation the appropriate authorities already can get access. But that's the same way that the cops can get a warrant from a ...

12/ judge to search your home. The whole framework of probable cause etc. The analogy here would just be the cops can go into any home they want at any time. The point being DOGE has already been at work on what this EO demands.


skywriter.blue

"And Republicans fear that reductions in staff and field offices will boomerang on them"

Yes, this is starting to happen. Case in point, Republican Mike Lawler who won in a swing district in NY that Biden also won:

House Republican Outraged by Social Security Office Closing in His District: A Slap in the Face'

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) protested the closing down of the Hudson Valley's only Social Security Hearing Office on Thursday, calling it a "slap in the face" to thousands of New Yorkers.
www.mediaite.com

Background:

Trump's Social Security chief rejects Latimer/Lawler effort to keep WP Hearing Office open

Donald Trump's Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, has rejected a bipartisan effort by Democratic Congressman George Latimer of the New York 16th Congressional District and Republican Mike Lawler of the 17th Congressional District to keep the Social Security Hearing Office in White Plains open.

In a letter to Latimer dated March 19, Dudek said that the people in Latimer's district who need to go to a hearing office can travel to Lower Manhattan, New Haven in Connecticut, the Bronx or Goshen in Orange County for the Social Security services they are seeking. Dudek told Latimer that he would be telling Lawler the same thing in a separate letter to him.

westfaironline.com

FTA:

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander in a scathing ruling accused DOGE of launching a "fishing expedition" at the Social Security agency and failing to provide any reason why it needed to access vast swaths of Americans' personal and private data.

Hollander said the "defendants, with so called experts on the DOGE Team" never identify or articulate a reason why DOGE needs "unlimited access to SSA's entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government."

The order in U.S. District Court in Baltimore blocks the Social Security Administration, acting Commissioner Leland Dudek and Chief Information Officer Michael Russo, as well as all related agents and employees working with them, from granting access to any system containing personally identifiable information.

Per the lawsuit, personally identifiable information is defined as information that can be used to identify an individual, either on its own or when combined with other information. That includes Social Security numbers, medical provider information, medical and mental health treatment records, employer and employee payment records, employee earnings, addresses, bank records and tax information.

The judge also ordered the DOGE team members and affiliates to delete all non-anonymized personally identifiable information in their possession or control that they have accessed "directly or indirectly" since Jan. 20.

Hollander, noting the affiliates of DOGE have kept their identities hidden, wrote, "ironically, the identity of these DOGE affiliates has been concealed because defendants are concerned that the disclosure of even their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy."

"The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent," the judge wrote.

The judge also said that the administration has not "attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task."

"Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud," Hollander wrote. "Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer."


That manifestation of humanity and empathy was criminalized for many, many years
Humanity and empathy are under a full force attack by Trumpers.
Just read anything posted by our Trumpers.
It's all hate and apathy.
#15 | Posted by ClownShack

Elon Musk on empathy: "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot."
https:
//substack.com/@marypezzulo/p-158894226

In The Cross Section, Paul Waldman notes that the point of the right wing's dehumanization of political opponents is to dismiss the pain they are inflicting. If the majority of Americans are not really human, toying with their lives isn't important--maybe it's even LOL funny to pretend to take a chainsaw to the programs on which people depend. "We are ants, or even less," Waldman writes, "bits of programming to be moved around at Elon's whim. Only he and the people who aspire to be like him are actors, decision-makers, molding the world to conform to their bold interplanetary vision."

As Waldman notes, Musk and his team of tech bros at the Department of Government Efficiency are not actually promoting efficiency: if they were, they would have brought auditors and would be working with the inspectors general that Trump fired and the Government Accountability Office that is already in place to streamline government. Rather than looking for efficiency, they are simply working to zero out the government that works for ordinary people, turning it instead to enabling them to consolidate wealth and power.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

"Most fundamental to protecting SOCIAL SECURITY is assuring that all who receive it are eligible by citizenship, and by their age and ID verified and quarters paid into the system. This needs nailed down."

Code of Federal Regulations

401.45. Verifying your identity.

(b) Manner of verifying identity "(1) Request in person. If you make a request to us in person, you must provide at least one piece of tangible identification such as a driver's license, passport, alien or voter registration card, or union card to verify your identity. If you do not have identification papers to verify your identity, you must certify in writing that you are the individual who you claim to be and that you understand that the knowing and willful request for or acquisition of a record pertaining to an individual under false pretenses is a criminal offense.

(2) Request by telephone. If you make a request by telephone, you must verify your identity by providing identifying particulars which parallel the record to which notification or access is being sought. If we determine that the particulars provided by telephone are insufficient, you will be required to submit your request in writing or in person. We will not accept telephone requests where an individual is requesting notification of or access to sensitive records such as medical records.

(3) Electronic requests. If you make a request by computer or other electronic means, e.g., over the Internet, we require you to verify your identity by using identity confirmation procedures that are commensurate with the sensitivity of the information that you are requesting. If we cannot confirm your identity using our identity confirmation procedures, we will not process the electronic request. When you cannot verify your identity through our procedures, we will require you to submit your request in writing.

www.ssa.gov

Citizenship is not a requirement to pay or receive Social Security.
#64 | Posted by snoofy

It's a little more complicated than that:

Can noncitizens receive Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security (SSI)?
www.ssa.gov(SSI)?,-December%2030%2C%202022&text=Lawfully%20present%20noncitizens%20of%20the,SSI%20Benefits%20For%20Aliens%20pages.

Generally, only noncitizens authorized to work in the United States by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can get an SSN. SSNs are used to report a person's wages to the government, to determine that person's eligibility for Social Security benefits, to work, collect Social Security benefit, and receive other government services.
www.ssa.gov

"At the same time, the agency will expedite processing all direct deposit change requests " both in person and online " to one business day. Prior to this change, online direct deposit changes were held for 30 days.
#2 | Posted by gracieamazed

"SSA recently required nearly all agency employees, including frontline employees in all offices throughout the country, to work in the office five days a week. This change ensures maximum staffing is available to support the stronger in-person identity proofing requirement."
#3 | Posted by gracieamazed

One business day after you get an appointment if you need to go in person. Getting that appointment can already take a long time and even requiring employees to work in the office 5 days a week isn't going to compensate enough to deal with the influx of increased appointments the agency anticipates:

Because the SSA serves a large population that is either older or physically disabled, many cannot access the internet. Under the new system, this would force these populations to visit an office to have their claim processed. The Diaz memo estimates it would require 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visitors per week to SSA's offices to implement the policy.

SSA offices do not currently have the resources to handle an influx of in-person appointments of this size. In 2023, the most recent data available, there were about 119,128 daily visits, on average, to SSA offices. Eight-five thousand more week visits would be a 14% increase. SSA offices no longer accept walk-ins and the wait time for an appointment, even before these changes, averaged over a month.

The memo anticipates creating a huge surge in demand for in-person appointments as the SSA slashes staff and closes offices. Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek has announced that he will terminate 7,000 workers, about 12% of the workforce. Meanwhile, dozens of SSA offices are being shuttered. Some people need to travel more than 100 miles to get to the nearest location. As the SSA limits services that could be provided over the phone, it is ending in-person services at some offices, converting them to phone-only.

An SSA source told Popular Information that there are "no significant concerns about fraud at intake" because no benefits are being distributed. And there are already multiple layers of identity verification in place before a claim is approved. The source said they believe the new ID verification steps are an effort to "create additional hurdles to filing claims and overwhelm the system."

The memo acknowledges that the policy changes would create increased "challenges for vulnerable populations." This seems to concede that many elderly and disabled people are physically unable to travel to an in-person office. It is unclear how these populations will be able to receive benefits at all.

The combination of fewer workers, fewer offices, and a massive increase in the demand for in-person services could sabotage the Social Security system " effectively denying many Americans the benefits they are due.

All of this is directly acknowledged in the Diaz memo. The memo predicts "service disruption," "operational strain," and "budget shortfalls." It also says preventing people who cannot use the internet or travel to an in-person office from receiving benefits could result in "legal challenges and congressional scrutiny."

popular.info


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