A senior official with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made explosive claims that illegal migrants who were issued Social Security numbers (SSNs) not only accessed taxpayer-funded welfare programs but also cast illegal votes in U.S. elections. Antonio Gracias, a close ally of Elon Musk and a top DOGE official, outlined the allegations during an appearance on The All-In Podcast. He said: “Every benefit program we looked at was being accessed by these people. 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it’s just ramping.”
Gracias explained how a nighttime hunch led to a deeper investigation into the voter rolls of so-called “friendly states.” He said: “I woke up at night, like two in the morning, I couldn’t sleep… and we looked at the public voter rolls. We found that thousands of them registered to vote. And then we went in further with those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted. It was shocking to us. And if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.”
🚨 DOGE’s Antonio Gracias Says Massive Numbers of Illegal Migrants Who Received SSN’s Are on Taxpayer Funded Benefits
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) April 4, 2025
“Every benefit program we looked at was being accessed by these people. 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it's just ramping.… pic.twitter.com/OyvSPrArRy
Voting in a federal election as a non-citizen is a felony under U.S. law. According to Antonio Gracias, the data uncovered by his team revealed figures that far surpass previously reported estimates. “I mean, it is shockingly bad. And this is the tip of the iceberg.” He continued, “We found people on all the benefit programs. We find them on unemployment. We find them on Medicaid. To your point, people on Medicaid and unemployment, they’re not contributing—they’re taking out. They’re mooching, right? They’re criminals.”
Gracias also disclosed that certain individuals mentioned in the data were associated with serious national security issues.“We sent this data list to the National Targeting Center… I don’t want to get too far into the data, but I can tell you they found hard hits in the Targeting Center of very bad people—criminals and people on the terrorist watch list that are in this group.”
DOGE, established as part of Elon Musk’s broader effort to overhaul the federal government, has been leveraging access to internal Social Security Administration (SSA) data to investigate abuse of public programs—and now, potentially, voter fraud. Under Musk’s leadership, the department has launched sweeping reforms, including the elimination of roughly 280,000 federal positions. DOGE has also set its sights on restructuring agencies like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with plans to scale back both staffing and operations. Elon Musk responded to the interview on X with one word: “Absolutely.”