A senior executive at the Social Security Administration was physically dragged from his office this week after clashing with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to The Washington Post.
Greg Pearre, a career civil servant who led an IT team working on the agency’s data systems, was removed over his opposition to a DOGE plan to cut off immigrants from key financial services, three people told the Post.
The scheme cooked up by Elon Musk’s DOGE squad falsely lists thousands of migrants as dead in a Social Security database known as the “death master file.”
Being entered into the death database cuts a person off from crucial financial services, like the ability to receive government benefits and access a bank account or credit card. The goal was to push migrants who were granted a temporary legal status under former President Joe Biden to “self deport.”
Jim Francis, a consumer law lawyer who is suing Social Security for wrongly entering a Maryland woman into the file, cast the repercussions in dire terms.
“It’s the source of that data that the whole world uses, which is why, if it’s inaccurate, it has such devastating impacts on people,” he told the Post. “Overnight, you literally become financially paralyzed.”
Tom Kind, a 90-year-old retiree in Colorado, told the Post that he had experienced being listed as dead, calling it a “nightmare.” In addition to losing benefits and health coverage, he faced a challenge convincing the agency that he was still alive. After jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops, he had to show up to an office in person for an interview, proving he was alive.
“That’s not any fun,” he said.
DOGE had been working on a strategy to push out immigrants since February. A group of about a dozen civil servants from Social Security were assigned to help Musk’s goons—and agents from the Department of Homeland Security—with the plot. Many career staff were worried that the project was wrong or illegal, a former senior official told the Post.
Leland Dudek, Social Security’s acting commissioner, who has signaled his willingness to carry out DOGE’s plans previously, worried that this scheme might be illegal, insiders told the Post.
Nevertheless, under pressure from President Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, he acquiesced, signing two memorandums on Monday that allowed the database change. More than 6,000 migrants were listed as dead despite being alive.
Pearre, the civil servant who had pushed back against the action, was removed two days later. He declined to comment to the Post, as did Dudek.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the paper that the death file move was justified and downplayed the internal opposition.
“The Trump Administration is protecting lawful American citizens and their hard-earned Social Security benefits, and ensuring illegal immigrants will no longer receive such economic entitlements,” she said. “Anyone who disagrees with the common sense policies of this Administration can find a new job.”
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