Nessel praises ruling temporarily blocking Trump administration from sharing health data with ICE

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from sharing vital Medicaid personal data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has called a vast overreach.

Nessel joined the lawsuit to block the data from being shared, a process that has been preliminarily halted by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

“I am relieved that the Court has recognized that the Trump Administration cannot abandon longstanding policies to personal healthcare data to advance a political agenda,” Nessel said in a statement. “Medicaid exists to serve the needs of some of our most vulnerable residents, not to provide unrelated agencies access to some of our most sensitive information. I will continue to fight to ensure Michiganders’ medical data remains protected and confidential.”

The court said the two federal agencies did not reasonably show its work when deciding to upend longstanding policy that prohibited the health and human services department from sharing information with homeland security for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

In its order, the court also said the agencies failed to consider a limit on the scope of the data provided, and instead moved forward with a plan to provide all private medical data for millions of Medicaid recipients.

The agencies are barred from sharing the data until the lawsuit’s conclusion or 14 days after both departments have completed a reasoned decision making process or rulemaking weighing policy tradeoffs and associated legal decisions.