Comments on Medicaid collecting Immigration Identifiers in T-MSIS

Executive Summary

In comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), NHeLP and 45 other organizations, oppose the proposal to require states to provide “immigration identifiers” for all Medicaid and CHIP recipients via the federal T-MSIS database. The comments explain that adding this information to the federal database is not necessary, burdensome to states, and most importantly, will exacerbate privacy concerns and chilling effects among immigrants and mixed-status families given CMS’s efforts to share Medicaid data with ICE for immigration enforcement.