WASHINGTON – The U.S. health department is giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials access to the personal data of 79 million Medicaid enrollees to help them track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the country, it said on Thursday.

Giving ICE access to the personal data of Medicaid enrollees marks an escalation in President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies. It may also raise privacy concerns under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA.

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said sharing data between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, fell within the department’s legal authority.

“With respect to the recent data sharing between CMS and DHS, HHS acted entirely within its legal authority – and in full compliance with all applicable laws – to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the department was exploring an initiative with CMS to ensure people living in the country illegally do not receive Medicaid benefits.

The agreement was first reported earlier on Thursday by the Associated Press, which said it was signed on Monday.

The Medicaid health program for low income people is jointly funded by the federal government and states.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for Medicaid under federal law, but 14 states and the District of Columbia provide coverage for eligible children regardless of immigration status, and seven states and DC do so for adults.

“CMS is aggressively cracking down on states that may be misusing federal Medicaid funds to subsidize care for illegal immigrants. This oversight effort – supported by lawful interagency data sharing with DHS – is focused on identifying waste, fraud, and systemic abuse,” the HHS spokesperson said.

The spokesperson did not address questions from Reuters on the type of data being shared or on how HHS would ensure HIPAA protections are upheld. The AP, citing a copy of the data sharing agreement, said the data included home addresses and ethnicities.

The agreement is the latest in a series of moves by the health department in support of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and comes a week after it widened its interpretation of a law banning most immigrants from receiving federal public benefits.

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(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O’Brien)