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Immigrants prove they are alive, forcing Social Security to undo death label

The immigrants are among more than 6,000 who were falsely added to a deaths database by DHS and the U.S. DOGE Service in a bid to pressure them to leave the United States.

3 min
(Alexis Arnold/The Washington Post; iStock)

Immigrants falsely labeled dead by the Social Security Administration are showing up at field offices with documents proving they are alive, leading staff to reinstate nearly three dozen people over the past week, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.

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The immigrants who have requested a reversal and been reinstated in Social Security databases include a Haitian asylum seeker and a minor child, the records show. Some immigrants have shown up with driver’s licenses and work permits to prove their legitimacy, the records show. Others have arrived bearing letters of notification that they received from their states declaring them dead.

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