From Pro Publica:
This year, when states began using an expanded Department of Homeland Security system to check their voter rolls for noncitizens, it was supposed to validate the Trump administration’s push to harness data from across federal agencies to expose illicit voting and stiffen immigration enforcement.
DHS had recently incorporated confidential data from the Social Security Administration on hundreds of millions of additional people into the tool, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. The added information allowed the system to perform bulk searches using Social Security numbers for the first time. ...
Experts say adding Social Security data to SAVE could help election officials verify, en masse, if voters are U.S. citizens, but it shouldn’t be used to make final determinations that people aren’t citizens.
That’s because multiple audits and analyses have shown that SSA’s citizenship information is often outdated or incomplete, especially for people who became naturalized citizens. With the 2026 midterms about a year away, Caren Short, director of legal and research for the League of Women Voters of the United States, said she fears the expanded use of SAVE will lead to errors. ...
Still, Leland Dudek, acting SSA commissioner until early May, told ProPublica he doesn’t trust that DHS will accurately flag noncitizens as officials try to cross-match data and files from multiple systems.
“They are probably going to make some massive mistakes,” he said. ...
Leland taking on the role as hero. It looks good on him. Wonder if he will comeback to serve as Commissioner again, or if he’s still disgusted with how he’s been treated.
ReplyDeleteIf Dudek had lasted one week longer before getting pushed out, does anyone think he would have had the courage to not sign this data-sharing agreement? He cut Maine from vital records reporting and added thousands of living immigrants to the Death Master File, so I somehow doubt it.
ReplyDeleteLeland was a FOOL!
ReplyDeleteLeland seeing a lot of vindication here. He truly cared about the agency and gave it his all. Best Commissioner we’ve had in the last three decades since I’ve been here, hands down.
ReplyDeleteIs this Leland’s wife?
DeleteLeland, are you back on the sauce?
DeleteDrinking the spiked Kool Aid again.
DeleteNo matter how many articles Leland participates in or how he tries to justify what he did, he ruined SSA. I’ve been with the Agency 15 years and even worked with him directly on many occasions and he sold us out. You sold us out Leland.
ReplyDeleteHe did sell us all out. He’s a traitor. I hope one day Leland pays for his crimes for colluding with these thieving destructive vindictive b@stards
DeleteThe government relies more and more on unreliable data. Mistake prone AI deployed without adequate testing and safeguards. Deliberately false information in the master death index. And now DHS using SSA's outdated and incomplete citizenship data for the purpose of disenfranchising people.
ReplyDeleteThe Social Security Administration, in some cases, is keeping track of employee absences and limiting field office hours when staff are spread too thin. Much of SSA’s workforce is considered “excepted” and continues working without pay during a shutdown.
ReplyDeleteAn SSA employee told Federal News Network that a field office in Port Angeles, Washington closed last Wednesday at noon, due to a staffing shortage. Last Thursday, a field office in Juneau, Alaska didn’t open until 2pm because of staffing issues.
These offices are currently open, according to a list of closures on SSA’s website. Other field offices in 12 states, however, were listed as not open for in-person services on Tuesday.
An SSA spokesperson told Federal News Network that two field offices were closed Monday, “due to limited staffing,” and that one of them reopened for normal operations on Tuesday. SSA has more than 1,250 field offices across the country.
“Dedicated Social Security Administration employees continue to serve our nation’s seniors and most vulnerable populations during the Democrat government shutdown,” the spokesperson said.
The employee, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said their office has begun filling out a spreadsheet every morning to record the number of absences. Absences, they said, peaked at more than 20% last Friday, although the office is seeing about a 15% absence rate, on average, for most workdays.
A notice on SSA’s website states that, “during the federal government shutdown, local offices will have REDUCED in-person services.”
Interesting post on "x"
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats just filed a lawsuit against the USDA — for trying to find out how many illegal aliens are receiving welfare benefits.
A federal investigator from D.O.G.E. dropped bombshell testimony:
“This literally blew us away. We went there to find fraud, and we found this by accident.”
“In 2021, you see 270,000 people — it goes all the way up to 2.1 million in 2024. These are illegal aliens getting Social Security numbers.”
“The system defaults — from Social Security to benefit programs — were set to max inclusion and max pay for these people, with minimum collection.”
“We found 1.3 million on Medicaid already. In every benefit program, we found individuals from this same group — about 5.5 million people — receiving benefits.”
“Then we checked voter rolls… and found people from this group registered to vote. Yes — who did vote.”
01:17 pm: There is so much factually wrong with this post. Among other things, SSA issues SSNs to undocumented workers so they can pay in taxes, not receive benefits. And the lawsuit mentioned in the post is about USDA's attempt to obtain PII it is not authorized to receive. The conservative Cato Institute even agrees there is very little illegal voting. But republicans want to prevent 100 legal Democratic voters the right to vote to prevent 1 undocumented alien from voting. The real goal - voter suppression - is obvious. https://www.cato.org/blog/shedding-light-incidence-illegal-noncitizen-voting
ReplyDelete