Proposed LINE Act Blocks Federal Agencies from Sharing Medicaid Health Data with ICE

If you’ve ever signed up for health coverage, you know how much sensitive, personal information is collected. The proposed Limiting ICE’s Nationwide Encroachment Act, or the LINE Act, cuts straight to protecting that data for people enrolled in Medicaid. Specifically, Section 2 of this bill explicitly prohibits the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from sharing any personally identifiable health details they collect via state Medicaid programs (Title XIX) with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This restriction is absolute: even if ICE requests the information for immigration enforcement purposes, CMS and HHS are legally blocked from sharing it, overriding standard data disclosure rules like the Privacy Act of 1974.

The Health Data Firewall

Think of this provision as building a firewall between your doctor’s office records and immigration enforcement. For people who rely on Medicaid—which includes millions of low-income adults, children, and people with disabilities—this is a significant privacy boost. The core idea is to ensure that seeking necessary medical care doesn't expose individuals, especially those in mixed-status families or immigrant communities, to potential immigration enforcement actions. Without this protection, the fear of data sharing can create a "chilling effect," where people skip vital appointments or necessary treatment because they’re worried the government will use their health history against them. This bill aims to keep that medical data strictly confidential.

Who Benefits from the Privacy Lock?

The beneficiaries here are straightforward: every individual enrolled in a state Medicaid program, particularly those who might otherwise fear that their health information could be used for immigration purposes. For example, a parent needing to enroll their child in Medicaid for a chronic condition could do so without the anxiety that their family’s identifiable health information might be turned over to ICE. The bill’s language is direct and clear, focusing only on barring CMS and HHS from disclosing this specific data to ICE for enforcement purposes. This clarity is important because it reduces the chance of bureaucratic misinterpretation.

Impact on Enforcement

On the other side of the equation, this bill restricts the tools available to ICE and other government agencies focused on immigration enforcement. Currently, these agencies might seek access to health enrollment data as part of their operations. If the LINE Act passes, that door is firmly shut when it comes to Medicaid data held by CMS and HHS. While ICE could potentially look for alternative legal avenues to obtain this information, this bill removes a direct and powerful source of data, meaning enforcement operations would need to rely on other, likely less efficient, methods. This provision essentially prioritizes the public health goal of ensuring everyone feels safe accessing necessary healthcare over the enforcement goal of accessing that specific data.