Donald Trump immigration crackdown: Over 6,000 listed ‘dead,’ Social Security numbers deleted to push ‘self-deportation’

The Donald Trump administration has designated more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead and cancelled Social Security numbers, hampering their access to services, according to a report by the Associated Press (AP) citing two people aware of the development.

This move will severely impact access to banks and other essential services where Social Security numbers are required amid President Trump's efforts to crackdown on immigrants allowed to enter the United States under programs initiated by Joe Biden.

The authorities are currently shifting the names of immigrants and their Social Security numbers to a database used to track the deceased. This move will encourage such immigrants to “self-deport," the report said.

Who are these immigrants?

However, there is no clarification on how these 6,000 immigrants were selected. It is expected that the Trump administration is targeting immigrants covered under the programs led by Joe Biden, which includes over 9 lakh people who entered the US with the CBP One app.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security cancelled the legal status of the immigrants who used the CBP One app. Under the Biden administration, they were typically allowed to stay in the US for two years with work authorization under presidential parole authority.

Federal judge on Trump's action against immigrants

On Thursday, a federal judge said she was stopping the Trump administration from issuing orders against hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country.

Recently, DHS and the Treasury Department signed a deal to allow the IRS to share tax data of immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and deport people staying illegally in the United States. This agreement will permit ICE to submit the names and addresses of immigrants staying illegally in the United States to the IRS for cross-verification of tax records.

Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group that has sued Trump administration efforts in court, stated that her organization would likely challenge the latest move of deleting Social Security numbers after details become available in the public domain.

“This president continues to engage in lawless behavior, violating the law and abusing our systems of checks and balances,” Perryman told AP.