With Musk’s trusted friend and fixer #Antonio #Gracias at the helm, the task force marks a significant expansion of DOGE’s portfolio
— from primarily working on agency-wide #layoffs to executing the president’s most hardline #immigration policies.
It’s also a test for how far DOGE’s reach can extend.
Key DOGE engineers now embedded at DHS include Kyle #Schutt, Edward #Coristine, (aka “Big Balls”) and Mark #Elez, according to their government email addresses.
At least two others, Aram #Moghaddassi and Payton #Rehling also have access to DHS data, as DOGE fingerprints are spread throughout DHS,
including Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security Agency.
They are providing the technical infrastructure for a sweeping set of actions aimed at revoking parole, terminating visas, and later on, reengineering the asylum adjudication process, according to the officials.
Their first mission: implement parole terminations for 6,300 undocumented immigrants who either have criminal records or are on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist.
That effort required coordinating with the Social Security Administration to have their Social Security numbers effectively canceled by adding them to a database that tracks dead people, the New York Times and the Washington Post first reported.
Their theory is that without effective Social Security numbers – needed for bank accounts and loans, among other things – these people would “self deport.”
Last week, the plan was finalized in a high-level White House meeting with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Gracias and other senior DOGE staffers and White House officials, two of the officials said.In recent weeks, the Trump administration has moved aggressively in its effort to revoke parole, visas and temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants and students,
many of whom were granted the ability to legally study and work in the United States in the short-term under Biden administration policies.
But what actually happens in the government’s IT systems to make sure that those people are eligible for deportation?
Who makes sure that that is reflected in the database?
That is where DOGE comes in
to comb through datasets at all relevant agencies and facilitate data-sharing between agencies
so the enforcement actions can be carried out systematically and at-scale, one of administration officials said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/doge-immigration-taskforce-00287327