Staffers for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are constructing a "deportation machine" using the sensitive data they've scooped up across the federal government, according to a new report.
Sources familiar with the plans told CNN that DOGE employees intend to create a centralized repository of data from the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, Health and Human Services and other agencies, and the data analytics company Palantir is involved with building out the database.
“If they are designing a deportation machine, they will be able to do that,” said a former senior IRS employee with knowledge of the plans.
ALSO READ: 'Dictatorship, not a town hall': Families 'distraught' as MTG disruptors tased and jailed
Trump administration officials believe the database would allow them to quickly build "targeting lists" that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can use to find and deport migrants, but a number of lawsuits are already challenging DOGE's access to highly protected information like the data that will be poured into the system.
“They’re going to take the information we already have and put it into a system,” a Trump administration official told CNN about DOGE’s plans. “It will be able to rapidly queue information. Everyone is converting to Palantir.”
Palantir was co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, a Musk ally and former Trump donor, and the company already contracts with other government agencies, including the IRS, which a senior IRS official says makes them a "logical choice" for the project, but civil rights attorneys say the database poses major risks.
“Even if the pretense is to target a small subset of people for removal, the effort will inevitably harm U.S. citizens and people here legally,” said Tanya Broder, a top attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. “All of us risk having privacy compromised. Citizens and immigrants live together – there’s no way to target a subset of undocumented people without harming citizens and lawful permanent residents.”
Trump told Time Magazine that DOGE was assembling a database with Americans’ personal information “because we want to find waste, fraud, and abuse, and want to cut our costs," but he demurred when asked whether that data would be used to round up migrants for deportations.
"Not that I know of, no," he then said.
But Democrats have already raised concerns about the DOGE team's access to and handling of sensitive personal data, and they cast doubt on their intentions for the database.
“The Trump Administration’s troubling track record of mishandling sensitive data, including repeated breaches, improper disclosures, and politically driven data manipulation proves they cannot be trusted to consolidate vast stores of personal, financial, and biometric information into a centralized repository that can be more easily exploited for political ends,” said one senior House Oversight Committee Democratic staffer.