Schofield Says Whistleblower Exposed 2.7 Million Death Plan
Whistleblower Jeremiah Schofield said he refused to carry out a Trump administration plan to add 2.7 million living people to the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. He said a sample he pulled showed the people marked for death were still alive.
The disclosure centers on a 49-page document reviewed by The Washington Post. Schofield said agency lawyers warned that falsely marking someone as dead could violate federal law, while the SSA says wrongful placement can cut off access to bank accounts and credit cards.
Schofield’s 25 years at SSA
Schofield worked at the Social Security Administration for 25 years before leaving in October. He told The Washington Post that he refused to implement the plan and later said, “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
He also said, “That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” describing a meeting with a DOGE official. According to Schofield, he concluded the purpose was to terrorize immigrants.
Death Master File consequences
The Death Master File is used to record when a person has died and should stop receiving government benefits. Schofield said the plan would have pushed names and Social Security numbers of living people into that file, and he said a sample of the 2.7 million names showed all of them were still alive.
The SSA website says being wrongly included in the file can be “devastating to the individual, spouse, and dependent children.” The file can also block access to bank accounts and credit cards, which means a false death listing can quickly reach a person’s finances and household.
Trump administration’s prior step
Last year, the Trump administration moved more than 6,000 immigrants to the Death Master File. Schofield said a DOGE official told him the goal was to make immigrants so miserable that they would self-deport or try to visit a Social Security office where they could be arrested.
That account leaves the dispute centered on the plan itself and the legal warning around it. Schofield’s disclosure says the government’s own records system was being considered for a use that would treat living people as dead, and the practical effect would have been immediate for anyone whose banking access depended on a clean Social Security record.
