Sponsor
Jefferson Van Drew
Representative · R-NJ
The bill aims to speed DHS–SSA data sharing and increase transparency to reduce benefit errors and improve verification, but it also expands data flows and reporting requirements while risking substantial benefit losses, increased administrative burdens, higher public costs, and heightened privacy and civil‑liberties harms for non‑citizens and others.
Immigrants with Social Security numbers (and people relying on SSA records) will have citizenship, immigration, and work-authorization updates processed faster, allowing SSA to adjust benefit eligibility and payroll/tax records more quickly and reduce incorrect payments and overpayments.
Employers and agencies (including federal employers) will receive more accurate information about work-authorization status, improving employment verification accuracy and reducing employer risk from incorrect authorization data.
Annual reporting on notifications to SSA will increase transparency, help detect Social Security number fraud, and support assessment of whether notifications and corrective actions are effective.
Non-citizens and non-nationals could lose access to major federal benefits — including Social Security retirement/disability/survivors benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, SSI, and TANF — for months they lack citizenship, causing substantial income and healthcare losses for older adults, disabled people, families, and low-income immigrants.
States, HHS, DHS, and SSA will face substantial administrative and fiscal burdens to verify citizenship monthly and to implement benefit terminations and reinstatements, increasing government costs and operational complexity.
Removing benefits for non-citizens is likely to shift costs to hospitals, states, and taxpayers through increased uncompensated care and higher social-service demand when people lose coverage.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Bars non‑citizens/non‑nationals from receiving SSA‑administered benefits and requires DHS to notify SSA of citizenship, immigration, or work‑authorization changes with annual DHS–SSA reports.
Representative · R-NJ
Introduced February 24, 2025 by Jefferson Van Drew · Last progress February 24, 2025
Requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to notify the Social Security Administration (SSA) within 180 days when someone with a Social Security number has a change in citizenship, immigration status, or work-authorization status. It also requires DHS and SSA to submit a yearly joint report to Congress about those notifications, timing, fraud prevention, coordination, and recommendations. Prohibits any person who is not a U.S. citizen or national in a given month from receiving a long list of federal benefits administered by SSA — including Social Security retirement/disability, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) — and makes that bar effective regardless of other current law provisions that now allow some noncitizens to receive benefits.