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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a new national effort to police public health insurance programs and kick unauthorized immigrants off of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on Tuesday. CMS will soon begin sending every state monthly reports on enrollment, highlighting enrollees who cannot be verified by federal databases and prompting reviews of their eligibility, according to a statement from the agency.

The announcement, reported first by CMS officials, is part of a series of moves from the Trump administration in its second term to crack down on illegal immigrants’ use of government benefits. The agency said in a statement that the system, which will begin to roll out on Tuesday, would “increase program integrity and verify eligibility of Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries.”

The new system, the agency said, would facilitate the ongoing process states use to determine eligibility for the programs by providing enrollment reports every month. The reports are “designed to identify Medicaid and CHIP enrollees who are not eligible due to citizenship or immigration status,” according to the CMS statement.

One of the agencies that will verify applicants is the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. The system will be used to check citizenship or immigration status for potential Medicaid and CHIP enrollees, the CMS statement said. SAVE will “verify and maintain up-to-date citizenship and immigration status data for federal public assistance programs,” according to the DHS website.

CMS has already sent the first in its series of state-level enrollment reports to every state. According to the CMS statement, the reports will go out at the start of every month going forward. States will have until the end of the month to review the information and report back to CMS with any updates.

Acting CMS Administrator Dr. Mehtmet Oz, in a statement to The Epoch Times, indicated the purpose of the monthly reports was to increase government transparency and weed out cases of fraud in the programs. “CMS has developed a system to help ensure enrollment is limited to only eligible individuals, safeguarding taxpayer dollars and the integrity of these safety-net programs,” Oz said.

“We are increasing transparency and building on these important steps by providing state Medicaid and CHIP agencies with the tools and information they need to help prevent, detect, and report instances of fraud, waste, and abuse to the public,” he added.

Agency press secretary Tom McCullen, in a statement to The Epoch Times, said the CMS system has been in the works for several years. The new system will “expand existing efforts to help states ensure that their Medicaid and CHIP programs are accessible to all eligible individuals and families,” according to the statement.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the changes “will help ensure that vital benefits are reserved for those who are eligible, as intended under the law,” in a statement.

CMS Uses Data Check Systems to Ensure Enrollees Are Eligible

CMS will use state Medicaid agencies and other federal partners to help conduct investigations, according to the announcement. The agency will also use existing verification systems to check on information provided by potential beneficiaries of the programs.

Enrollees whose immigration or citizenship information is unclear or cannot be confirmed by the agency’s databases will be allowed to present alternative data that proves their eligibility for the programs, the CMS statement said. If a beneficiary is deemed ineligible for Medicaid or CHIP, the beneficiary will be removed from the program.

CMS Statement on Immigration Eligibility Checks in Medicaid and CHIP

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz has said the changes to Medicaid and CHIP are necessary to “ensure that taxpayer-funded health care benefits are available only to those who are eligible, as intended by Congress and under the law.” He made the statement in a joint press release from the agency and the White House last month.

His comments come amid a long-standing Republican push to “restore integrity” to federal public benefits and eligibility verification processes. The Trump administration has started several such efforts in its second term, and on February 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that requested agencies review all federal benefit programs and take steps to ensure that only citizens were receiving benefits in accordance with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.