Michigan, along with Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington are suing the Trump admin.
Michigan – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has said that Michigan is one of several states suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for deciding to share sensitive Medicaid data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says that giving out this information breaks long-standing privacy rules and federal law, placing millions of vulnerable people at risk.
For almost 70 years, federal rules have made it clear that Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income people, children, pregnant women, seniors, and people with disabilities, cannot share personal health information.
The only things that the Medicaid program or public health can utilize that data for are things that help them. Immigration enforcement is not one of those things. But news reports claim that on June 13, 2025, HHS sent DHS plenty of Medicaid records from various states. These records had private health information concerning millions of people.
“Our personal healthcare data is exactly that: personal,” Nessel said. “It should remain confidential and be accessible only to agencies directly involved with Medicaid. This unlawful move by the Trump Administration to grant access to unrelated entities will undoubtedly harm the health, privacy, and well-being of all Michiganders. I remain committed to protecting our privacy rights.”
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) cover about 2.6 million people in Michigan, including more than a million kids. More than 78 million people in the US depend on Medicaid or CHIP for basic health services. The lawsuit says that using this data to enforce immigration rules will spread fear among immigrant communities and stop people who need emergency medical care from getting it, which will hurt public health and put a strain on state healthcare systems.
The group of attorneys general says that the Trump Administration broke a number of federal laws, such as the Administrative Procedure Act, the Social Security Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, and the Privacy Act. They also say that the action goes against what Congress wanted, which was for everyone, regardless of immigration status, to be able to get emergency Medicaid treatment.
The lawsuit asks the court to stop HHS from sending additional personal Medicaid information to DHS or other federal agencies and to stop DHS from utilizing the information to enforce immigration laws. Nessel and her counterparts warn that without court intervention, many families may avoid life-saving care out of fear their information could be used against them, leading to unnecessary suffering or even death.
Along with Michigan, the states that are suing are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The coalition’s goal is to bring back privacy laws that have been in place for decades and stop personal health data from being used for things other than healthcare.