Experts are raising serious concerns about the Trump administration’s move to gain access to sensitive data, fearing it could weaponize it for political purposes or even for immigration enforcement.
The White House is pushing to obtain personal information collected by state unemployment programs and stored within the Labor Department. This data, which includes workers’ addresses, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive details, was originally gathered to help detect fraudulent unemployment claims during the pandemic. Now, experts worry that it could be weaponized by the administration.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that gives the labor secretary and her team full access to this data. The order mandates that the Labor Department’s inspector general’s office provide the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “unfettered access” to all unemployment data, including payment records. This comes after Trump’s recent confirmation of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary.
Andrew Stettner, an expert on unemployment insurance at The Century Foundation, expressed his concern: “The concern is they could use it for whatever they want to. The immediate worry is they will use it for immigration enforcement.”
Stettner explained that the data includes specific information, such as where people live and what jobs they do, details that could already be denied to the Department of Government Efficiency. Even if the goal is to fight fraud, he warned, there are risks of this data being misused, leading to benefits being denied to both fraudsters and innocent people, or even leaking due to mishandling.
“Are they going to follow due process?” Stettner questioned, worrying about the lack of safeguards around such sensitive data.
DOGE, overseen by Elon Musk, has been seeking sensitive data from other federal agencies, such as the Treasury Department and the Social Security Administration. As the department fires federal workers and makes claims of widespread fraud, lawsuits have been filed, warning that the data could be misused for political or policy goals.
A spokesperson for the White House told HuffPost that the administration’s focus is on combating fraud but would not say if the data would be shared with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“DOGE is looking for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars across all agencies, including the Department of Labor,” said deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.
Unemployment programs are typically managed by state agencies and funded through employer taxes. During the pandemic, the Labor Department’s inspector general’s office began collecting data from the states to identify potentially fraudulent claims, such as those filed in the name of deceased individuals or across multiple states.
Larry D. Turner, the former inspector general for the Labor Department, explained to HuffPost that while the data was crucial to fighting fraud, it was also sensitive and could be easily misused. Turner, who was fired by Trump early in his presidency, noted that when he was in charge, his office had agreed not to share the data with anyone due to the risk of compromising it.
“We agreed we would not share it with anybody because of the possibility it could get into the wrong hands and be compromised,” Turner said.
Trump has long advocated for cracking down on undocumented immigration and has pushed his administration to use all available resources to identify those living in the country illegally. Experts believe sharing information across agencies, including between the IRS and ICE, could be a strategy in this effort. The Washington Post recently reported that the IRS is nearing a deal to share the addresses of potential undocumented immigrants with ICE.
The executive order on unemployment goes beyond just giving the inspector general’s office access to the data. It also mandates that the federal government should have full access to data from state programs that receive federal funding, including data stored in third-party databases.
One of the organizations that could be impacted is the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), which works with states to detect fraud by cross-referencing and analyzing unemployment claims. NASWA did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the executive order.
Michelle Evermore, an expert on unemployment insurance who worked at the Labor Department, called the White House’s push for this data “incredibly distressing.”
“This is the federal government trying to control state-level data,” said Evermore, who is now a senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance.
While Evermore acknowledged there may be legitimate reasons for the federal government to request state data — such as improving fraud detection or creating a centralized platform for claimants — she warned that such sensitive information should not be available to just anyone in the government.
“If you have the state data, you have a tremendous amount of information on individuals,” she explained.
