A federal judge in California, turning away a challenge by New York and other blue states, has ruled the Trump administration may resume sharing biographical, location and contact data about unauthorized immigrants receiving public health insurance benefits with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, starting in January.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria’s ruling<\/a> was a victory for the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration and a setback for California, New York and 18 Democrat-led states. The states sued in July to block the administration from using Medicaid data acquired from the Department of Health and Human Services to further its mass deportation initiative.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the state Department of Health said the ruling was \u201cunder review\u201d and said \u201cit is too early\u201d to tell if there will be \u201cany impact on New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMost undocumented individuals are not eligible for full Medicaid coverage, and the small subset enrolled in New York State Medicaid do not, and have never, used federal dollars,\u201d agency spokesperson Danielle DeSouza said in a statement. \u201cHowever, New York does provide Emergency Medicaid in life-threatening circumstances to undocumented persons as required of all state Medicaid programs under current federal law. \u201c<\/p>\n The ruling could affect up to hundreds of thousands of immigrants without permanent legal status living in New York state, according to data provided by the state. About 7 million New Yorkers are enrolled in Medicaid, according to state officials.<\/p>\n In a post<\/a> on X, President Donald Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller \u201cThis ruling is long overdue.\u201d In a statement, Department of Homeland spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the ruling \u201ca victory for the rule of law and American taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n But critics of the information-sharing with ICE contend it restricts privacy rights and will further deter immigrants from signing up for government programs and seeking health care, including for issues such as infectious diseases for which treatment or lack thereof could have consequences for the broader population.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a deterrent for non-citizens to get involved in any kind of government program, including Medicaid,\u201d said Bill Hammond, senior health policy fellow at the Empire Center, an Albany-based nonpartisan think tank. \u201cThat may be what the Trump administration intends, they want to send the message: stay away, we don\u2019t want you here.\u201d<\/p>\n Undocumented immigrants cannot enroll in federal Medicaid programs, but several Democrat-led states have extended state-funded health insurance benefits to some immigrants who lack legal status. New York has extended Medicaid benefits to all residents over 65 years old, regardless of their immigration status, including 26,000 \u201cundocumented immigrants\u201d as of November 2025, according to state data.<\/p>\n States also provide Medicaid insurance to low-income individuals, regardless of their immigration status, for emergency services. As of November 2025, 465,000 noncitizens were enrolled in emergency Medicaid in New York state, according to state data. That number includes noncitizens whose citizenship status renders them ineligible for other Medicaid programs, Hammond said.<\/p>\n Chhabria\u2019s order, handed down on Monday, allows HHS to share with ICE the citizenship and immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID of immigrants living unlawfully in the United States.<\/p>\n In his ruling, however, Chhabria said ICE and HHS are barred from sharing personal health records and other potentially sensitive medical information because \u201cthe new policies are totally unclear about what that information would be, why it would be needed for immigration enforcement purposes, and what the risks of sharing it with DHS [Department of Homeland Security] would be.\u201d<\/p>\n Chabbria also barred HHS from sharing information about other immigrants receiving Medicaid.<\/p>\n The ruling does not officially define who qualifies as an \u201cunlawfully present\u201d immigrant whose data may be shared, and it makes no mention of the specific circumstances of asylum-seekers, recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or other forms of deportation parole.<\/p>\n The decision comes after California, New York, and 18 other states sued<\/a> the Trump administration, following reports<\/a> that HHS was sharing data about undocumented immigrants enrolled in Medicaid with DHS officials.<\/p>\n Chhabria in August temporarily barred the Trump administration from sharing Medicaid data for immigration enforcement purposes, but his new ruling partially overrides that decision. It comes after HHS<\/a> and ICE<\/a> released memos in the fall about why and how they planned to share data.<\/p>\n ICE policy previously barred the agency from using Medicaid data as the basis of immigration enforcement actions until October, when ICE issued its new policy<\/a> on the matter under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n In the memorandum, the agency said it can use HHS information for its law enforcement purposes, including criminal immigration investigations and civil immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n The memo said the information may help identify immigrants who entered the U.S. without inspection and who have failed to register themselves with the appropriate federal authorities.<\/p>\n “The information obtained from HHS will assist ICE in holding these aliens accountable for violating the nation’s immigration laws,” the memo said.<\/p>\n