The Trump administration is cracking down on noncitizens receiving Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits, according to an announcement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The center launched an oversight program on Tuesday, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to provide states with reports of individuals enrolled in Medicaid who do not appear on federal databases.

“We are tightening oversight of enrollment to safeguard taxpayer dollars and guarantee that these vital programs serve only those who are truly eligible under the law,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

States are required to review the federal reports, identify immigration status discrepancies, request information and enforce noncitizen eligibility rules.

Federal law typically does not allow noncitizens to enroll in Medicaid. However, 1.4 million people are enrolled in Medicaid who do not meet citizenship and immigration status requirements, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.

Some states, like California, Oregon and Colorado have extended Medicaid eligibility to undocumented immigrants, which accounts for the large number of recipients. It is unclear how cooperation will go between states who have expanded Medicaid enrollment.

“Every dollar misspent is a dollar taken away from an eligible, vulnerable individual in need of Medicaid,” said CMS administrator Mehmet Oz.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law July 4, implemented tighter restrictions on Medicaid eligibility including a crackdown on work requirements for able-bodied adults, frequent eligibility redeterminations and increased restrictions on noncitizens.

The move from the health department comes as the Trump administration has worked to share more data on individuals enrolled in Medicaid. The health department first gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to enrollment records for individuals on Medicaid in June.

Twenty states, including California, Colorado and New York, filed a lawsuit against the department in July. A federal judge temporarily blocked the health agency from sharing information in those states last week.

“Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents,” Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in the order.

I love politics. I love my friendships. Why does it feel like I have to choose between the two?  Although I’ve been an outspoken conservative...

While most Democrats are opposed, President Donald Trump’s vow to end mail-in voting, which he says is ripe for fraud, has been met with approval from both an election attorney as well as the America First Policy Institute.

“President Trump should be applauded for leading the charge to ensure that every American's vote matters and is not undermined by corruption,” the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) told The Center Square by email.

“This is not just a policy fight,” AFPI said. “This is a fight for the survival of our republic.”

AFPI is a non-profit and non-partisan research institute aiming to “advance policies that put the American people first,” according to its website.

Election attorney and founder of law firm OGC Law, LLC Greg Teufel told The Center Square that “eliminating mail-in balloting would go a long way toward restoring confidence in our election procedures."

“Mail-in voting has long been recognized as the most vulnerable type of voting for election fraud,” Teufel said.

“Because ballots are not completed in front of election officials, coercion, bribery, and voting on behalf of people of limited competence is all possible,” Teufel told The Center Square.

AFPI likewise told The Center Square that “President Trump is right in saying that our elections will never be secure so long as we have widespread use of mail-in ballots.”

“With rare exception, mass mail-in voting is a recipe for fraud and chaos,” AFPI said. “Other nations recognize this, and many abandoned this broken system decades ago.”

“The United States of America is the greatest nation in the world, and our electoral system should set the global standard for security and transparency,” AFPI said.

AFPI listed to The Center Square examples of the issues of mail-in voting.

For instance, “in some states, one now can apply to be on the voter rolls as a ‘permanent absentee voter,’ which means one automatically gets an absentee ballot application every election,” AFPI said.

Additionally, “reliance solely on mail-in voting may lead to the disenfranchisement of America’s eligible citizen class and could also lead to fraud through ballot trafficking,” AFPI told The Center Square.

“Mass mail-in voting presents vulnerabilities with the chain of custody of a ballot and increases the prevalence of error in states that do not maintain clean voter rolls,” AFPI said.

The Center for Election Innovation and Research did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account Monday: “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS.”

“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” Trump said.

The president further said that “while we’re at it,” he will get rid of “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”

Trump said the efforts to protect elections will be brought about by an executive order “to help bring honesty to the 2026 Midterm Elections.”