DOGE staffers gain access to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data

Four Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers have access to the government’s data on an untold number of immigrants, FedScoop reports.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that handles legal immigration, recently granted access to Kyle Shutt, Aram Moghaddassi, Payton Rehling, and Edward Coristine — the 19-year-old DOGE employee who also goes by “Big Balls” — according to an internal agency memo obtained by FedScoop.

The March 28 memo asks Troy Edgar, the deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to have the department provide direction for the four DOGE staffers’ access to what the memo refers to as USCIS’s “data lake,” USCIS Data Business Intelligence Services, described as a “cloud-based centralized repository of data ingested from disparate USCIS applications and source data.”

According to the memo, this system is accessed through Databricks, “an analytics platform that connects disparate sources of data into a unified system.” The memo also requests that DHS review and give direction for DOGE staffers’ access to both Databricks and Github.

The memo FedScoop obtained doesn’t explain why DOGE needs to access USCIS systems. But one source told FedScoop that USCIS’s data lake contains databases — including the Electronic Immigration System and the Central Index System — that have information on refugees and asylum seekers. DOGE staffers could potentially access data on green card holders who are seeking US citizenship, naturalized US citizens, and people with temporary legal statuses like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

It’s unclear what DOGE wants with USCIS data. But Elon Musk is fixated on immigrants, legal and otherwise. Musk has spent years pushing a version of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, claiming that Democrats have facilitated mass migration and widespread voter fraud to steal elections.

In a recent episode of the All-In podcast, DOGE staffer Antonio Gracias claimed that 1.3 million undocumented immigrants were on Medicaid, and that “thousands” of undocumented people across the country were registered to vote.

“The reality is they have various kinds of status, and it’s a very detailed analysis, legally, that we’re working through right now about how to deal with it,” Gracias said.