Court filings submitted on July 16, 2026, indicate that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shared improperly obtained Medicaid data with the data analytics firm Palantir. The revelation emerged from a federal lawsuit filed by more than 20 Democratic attorneys general who are challenging the Trump administration's data-sharing agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and immigration authorities.
According to the filings, CMS improperly transferred data on millions of individuals—including U.S. citizens and legal residents—to ICE in January. ICE subsequently uploaded this information to Palantir’s ELITE app, a tool utilized by agents to identify the locations of noncitizens for potential deportation. Palantir stated to the press that the dataset in question has since been purged.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria had previously ruled that certain Medicaid data for non-legal residents could be shared, but he paused the program in May 2026 after the government admitted to sharing protected information. The Justice Department recently acknowledged that the same dataset was inadvertently reshared during an attempt to process data from states not involved in the litigation.
ICE officials stated in court declarations that the agency has made good-faith efforts to delete all copies of the unauthorized files, though they noted technical challenges in ensuring every instance of the data has been removed. While the Justice Department is seeking to expand the categories of data ICE can legally access, the plaintiff states argue that the recent security lapses demonstrate the agency is unable to manage the information according to court mandates.