The Brief

An Orange County nonprofit that got millions in pandemic relief funds earmarked to feed struggling seniors failed to submit federally-required yearly audits detailing how it spent that taxpayer money, according to public records obtained by LAist.

The organization has been led at various points over the last year by the 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. Do voted to direct funds to the group without publicly disclosing his close family relationship. State law allows officials to knowingly award taxpayer money to their adult children — something the state Senate and two Assembly committees voted unanimously in 2016 to make a crime. But the bill never made it to a full Assembly vote.

The money was part of O.C.’s allocation from a wave of pandemic relief funding for local governments provided by Congress under the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. County supervisors each got to allocate part of that money to meal programs in their districts, and Do directed his district’s funding to a nonprofit that was new at the time, Viet America Society.

The missing audits are “a really excellent example of the failure to monitor at the county level,” said Rose Chan Loui, a longtime attorney for nonprofits who now directs UCLA Law School’s program on philanthropy and nonprofits.

“If they would have been required to comply with that, we probably would have a lot more transparency as to what is going on.”

The details of what happened

In April 2021, O.C.’s top elected officials — the Board of Supervisors — voted to devote part of the county’s ARPA funding to feed seniors and people with disabilities who lacked access to sufficient food. The supervisors divided that money equally among each district, with each supervisor then deciding how to spend their district’s funding.

Supervisor Do — who was representing communities with the highest poverty rates in the county — directed his district’s funding to Viet America Society. At Do’s request, the group’s contract was ultimately increased to $4 million in federal funds, split into monthly payments of about $167,000 to cover meal services from May 2021 through May 2023.

Viet America Society has been led at various points over the last year by Do’s 22-year-old daughter, Rhiannon Do, according to a tax filing and other records. It’s a family relationship Do did not disclose before key votes on the group’s funding, according to an LAist review of meeting videos and three county officials — two supervisors and county CEO Frank Kim.

The group was initially led by Peter Pham, an electrical contractor and restaurateur. Before founding the nonprofit in mid-2020, Pham was paid about $21,000 — largely raised by Do — for construction work on statues Do had installed in Fountain Valley in 2015 and 2016, according to a state investigation.

More recently, Pham has alternated with Rhiannon Do as president of Viet America Society since last December, according to public records.

It’s unknown how much of the $4 million in taxpayer money went to meals for those who needed them. Records obtained by LAist through a public records request show the nonprofit failed to submit federally-required audits that would detail how it spent the money.

Andrew Do, Rhiannon Do, and Pham did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment for this article. The Dos previously declined to comment on reporting by LAist on other funding Do helped direct to the nonprofit. Andrew Do denied wrongdoing in an interview with City News Service in late November.

Pham initially told LAist last month that he would be available for an interview, but has not returned multiple follow-up calls and text messages to schedule it.

The audit requirement was spelled out in a county contract with Viet America Society that Pham signed in May 2021. It states the nonprofit was required under federal law to conduct an annual audit of how the funds were spent, known as a “single audit,” once it spends more than $750,000 of the funding.

Single audits look at a nonprofit’s finances to make sure they’re using federal dollars for their intended purpose and have an accounting system to accurately document the spending, according to the federal government. They’re “the single most important way” to assess an organization’s ability to manage federal dollars, federal officials say.

Deadlines for filing two of those audits with the county and federal authorities were missed by Viet America Society, according to public records. The first was due to be filed to the county by late June 2022 and the second in June 2023, according to the county contract. And a federal spokesperson told LAist the audits were required to be uploaded to a public database within nine months of the audit period, which corresponds to a deadline of the end of September last year and this year.

But the audits do not show up in that federal database.

And weeks after first being asked by LAist in November, county officials have not answered whether the audits were submitted to the county, as required by the contract. Viet America Society also was unable to provide copies of either audit to the county in October of this year, according to email records. A consultant to the group told LAist they hadn’t been completed at that point.

Viet America Society is the county’s only private contractor for this pandemic meals program that does not have single audits on file in the federal database. The others — Meals on Wheels Orange County, 2-1-1 Orange County and AgeWell Senior Services — all have their audits in the database for the last two years.

Tax records also indicate neither audit of Viet America Society was conducted, at least as of this October. Despite its county contract requiring the single audits — “in accordance with” federal law — the nonprofit marked on its tax filings for the last two years that the audits were not required — and left blank whether they were conducted.

If any such audits exist, a county spokesperson said, they will be provided in response to a records request LAist submitted over three weeks ago.

LAist also asked county spokespeople if the county has received any accounting at all of how Viet America Society spent the $4 million the county provided for these meal services. They have not provided an answer. The contract terms require the single audits to be submitted to the county, as well as a final financial statement “detailing all program expenditures.” The financial statement was required to be submitted to the county within 30 days of the contract ending on May 31, 2023.

[Click here to read the contract and amendments.]

Group withdrew when asked for copies of audits

Two months ago, in October, the county required Viet America Society to submit its single audits for the last two years as part of an application for new county funding in a competitive bidding process. In contrast, the group’s previous county contracts were not subject to competitive bidding, according to county records LAist obtained.

A Viet America Society representative told the county that the group was unable to provide copies of those audits, according to emails LAist obtained through a public records request.

Those emails show that after obtaining a one-week extension from the county to disclose the audits in its application, the representative told the county that neither audit could be provided by the extended deadline. And the group withdrew from seeking the new funding.

“I have checked with Peter Pham at VAS and due to the deadline of Friday he could not commit to meet it,” wrote the nonprofit’s representative, Roger Faubel.

“With many thanks, we must withdraw our pursuit.”

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Orange County records

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That representative, Roger Faubel, told LAist that Pham, the nonprofit’s founder and on-and-off president, had told him in October that the audits hadn’t been completed.

“I talked to Peter, and I said, ‘Peter, you know you can’t do this. It’s unraveling here,'” said Faubel, a high-profile county lobbyist, in an interview.

Viet America Society had only gotten part way through the audit process by that point, Faubel told LAist.

“You say that you can meet the timeframe, but it’s not occurring,” Faubel said he told Pham, recommending that he withdraw from seeking the new funding. Emails show Faubel followed up by letting the county know Viet America Society was withdrawing from consideration.

“I realized that he could not comply with all of the information that was required of him,” Faubel said.

In an email to county officials, Faubel said he was Viet America Society’s consultant. He told LAist he didn’t register as the nonprofit’s lobbyist because he wasn’t paid for helping, so he wasn’t required to register as its lobbyist under county regulations.

Faubel’s clients have included AT&T, Waste Management and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Faubel also lobbied the county on behalf of the landlord for both Viet America Society and Do’s private law office, according to lobbying disclosures by Faubel. The nonprofit and Do’s law office are on the same floor of the same building.

The October emails about audits not being available took place within days of Do’s daughter being marked as the group’s only director or trustee on its tax filing.

What happens when audits are missed

Nonprofits can face consequences for not submitting their single audits. When it comes to money given directly by the federal government, federal agencies can halt funding until a nonprofit completes their audits, or even cancel the federal dollars altogether.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Treasury Department, which awarded the federal funding the county provided Viet America Society, told LAist in an email that the county is responsible for making sure the nonprofit follows the audit requirements.

“All recipients are required to provide detailed information on how funds are used,” a Treasury spokesperson said of the ARPA dollars that flowed through local governments.

“It is the recipients’ responsibility (in this case, assumably, Orange County) to ensure compliance of their subrecipients,” they added. Viet America Society was a subrecipient.

The county’s contract — pointing to federal law — obligated the nonprofit to submit annual single audits once it spent more than $750,000 in federal funding. That would require audits so far for 2021 and 2022.

County officials can take action if organizations breach their contract terms. In the past, they’ve taken steps like having contractors refund the county from money already provided.

When O.C. Supervisor Katrina Foley was told of the missing audits by LAist, she said she found the situation frustrating.

The audits, she said in an interview, are “a requirement of law so that we ensure that taxpayer dollars are being well spent and used for the purpose they were intended.”

“I’m disappointed that this is happening,” she added. “Because there are those of us that are really doing work to make sure that there’s equity in the way that grants are given out” and that audit requirements are followed.

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento has called for an investigation into Do. The other two county supervisors, Doug Chaffee and Don Wagner, didn’t return messages for comment on this story. They previously have said they see nothing wrong with Do’s actions.

Tax filings show $276,000 in taxpayer money went unspent

The nonprofit’s tax filings show it grew its cash on hand by $276,000 in 2021 by not spending all of the government funding it received that year — all of which appears to have been paid specifically by the county for the group to provide meals to vulnerable people. That year, the group billed the county monthly for providing meals to vulnerable people.

The county contract, however, required the group to return any funds that were not spent on services.

Additionally, the county meals contracts required Viet America Society to disclose how many meals were provided and the number of meal deliveries. But invoice records obtained by LAist show that for the first 15 months, the nonprofit did not do so on its regular invoices — for which the county paid $2 million during that period.

The only detail given in invoices for charges across that 15-month period was "Services for the County of Orange Nutritional Gap Program," according to records LAist obtained through its records request to the county.

Click to see the invoices

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Orange County records

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LAist asked county spokespeople about the lack of disclosure, and why the county apparently did not enforce this contract requirement. No answers have been provided.

‘Serious concerns’ raised early on about the group’s legal status

Email records obtained by LAist also show a county contract administrator raised concerns three years ago about plans to contract with Viet America Society to provide meals — largely because of its inability to show it was legally registered as a nonprofit.

A county executive approved the funding anyway, emails show. That executive, Dylan Wright, and county spokespeople have not answered questions about why he decided to proceed despite the concerns, and whether Do had a role in that decision. The county went on to pay more than $3 million to the organization over the next two years before it registered with state nonprofit regulators as required by law.

The first $2 million of that money was directed by Do to Viet America Society outside public meetings, under the meal funding for his district. The rest was approved by Do and other supervisors, at Do’s request, in an April 2022 extension of the group’s contract.

“I have serious concerns about issuing a contract to this organization that appears to be a home based business and can’t verify their non-profit status,” wrote Heather Condon, a county contract administrator who was processing the group’s first county contract, in an email to other officials at her department on Dec. 23, 2020.

She then asked her colleagues if Viet America Society had been approved at the state level as a nonprofit. Follow-up emails show the concerns were raised up the chain that day directly to Wright.

State Attorney General records reviewed by LAist show no registration until two years later, in January 2023. And even then, state regulators said the group was still not in compliance.

After learning of the legal status concerns in December 2020, Wright decided later that same day to move forward, according to the emails. The emails back do not show an explanation back to Condon responding to her specific concerns.

Condon told LAist she never received an explanation addressing her concerns.

“Just a direction to proceed,” said Condon, who retired from the county earlier this year.

“I don’t know what went on in the discussions to go ahead and approve issuing the contract.”

The state charity registration is required in order for the state attorney general to ensure nonprofits are doing the work they said they’d do when they obtained their nonprofit tax exemption, said Chan Loui of UCLA Law School.

“It’s essentially your pact with the public,” she said.

“You’re getting benefits as a nonprofit from the state of California, and the attorney general is charged with making sure that those funds are in fact being used for public good,” she added.

“The attorney general can’t do their job if you’re not filing.”

Foley, the county supervisor, told LAist it’s important that the county is only paying entities that can legally receive the money. Foley said she’s worked hard to make sure that the nonprofits she directed funding to were in compliance with legal requirements.

“No matter what kind of contract we're entering into with the county, we need to be entering into these agreements with organizations that are lawfully able to partner with the county agency,” she said.

“I feel like we have to have standards. Right?” she added.

State law requires nonprofits to register with the attorney general within 30 days of receiving assets. It took Viet America Society over two years to do that, according to disclosures it later filed.

Even after it registered, the attorney general found the nonprofit still was not legally compliant because it hadn’t filed its long-overdue annual registration and financial disclosures for 2020.

This April, the group was declared delinquent by the AG’s office, which stated at the time that Viet America Society was “prohibited” from seeking or spending funds.

While the group was still declared delinquent, Do voted for another $2.5 million in county funding for his daughter’s group, without disclosing the family connection. Viet America Society resolved its status in June when the AG’s office received its overdue 2020 paperwork, according to the AG’s records.

Supervisors to vote on new policy to require family member disclosure

Supervisor Sarmiento is proposing county ethics reforms that would require supervisors to disclose any family relationships to people or groups seeking county funding approvals that come before them. It would also require more public transparency about who supervisors divvy up their districts’ discretionary funding to, by posting online a quarterly log of all agreements that have been approved.

“As elected officials, we have an obligation to be as transparent as possible with the public and disclose any potential conflicts of interest, especially when voting to spend taxpayer dollars,” Sarmiento said in a statement to LAist.

That item will be up for a vote at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting, which starts at 9:30 a.m.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said crews made significant progress overnight to repair a rupture in a 100-year-old water main in West Hollywood that caused a massive sink hole and severe flooding in the area on Thursday.

Repairs included cutting and removing a 25-foot-long section of the broken pipe and putting a replacement in place.

LADWP officials said the pipe will be repressurized, checked for leaks, and tested for regulatory compliance. It will need to be refilled before street paving.

The department doesn't have a specific completion date for the fix.

Sunset Boulevard between Sherbourne Drive and San Vicente Boulevard is still closed to traffic. Nearby streets have limited access, including at Cynthia and San Vicente, for public safety.

A map of road closures provided by LADWP as of July 18.

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Courtesy LADWP

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Where things stand for local businesses

Dialog Cafe on Holloway Drive said on Instagram on Thursday that the cafe sustained significant damage and didn't know when it can reopen.

And Book Soup reported on social media Saturday that they remained closed. The said they hope to reopen within a few days, noting the "the neighborhood remains inaccessible except to residents."

Republicans are leaning into immigration enforcement as one of their top campaign issues this midterm cycle — despite a rocky start to the year for messaging on the president's top policy.

An NPR analysis of advertisement data from the firm AdImpact shows that when it comes to immigration, Republicans are spending more money and running more ads than Democrats are. The data set includes ads purchased from January through June, before immigration enforcement officers shot and killed people in Maine and Texas this month.

These political ads offer one indication of where each party sees its momentum going with voters, as candidates across the country gear up for the general election in November. The data suggests Republicans see immigration as a winning issue: Since the start of the year, Republicans and their supporting organizations have run nearly 300 ads nationwide that either include a mention of immigration or are solely about immigration. This compares to 62 ads from Democrats and their supporting organizations.

"Republicans stood up for Americans. Democrats sat down for illegals. Thomas Massie sides with these radical-left lunatics," reads one ad funded by the MAGA KY PAC, a political action committee that was set up to defeat Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in the primary. The ad cost over $831,000; Massie, a frequent critic of President Trump, went on to lose his race to Trump-endorsed candidate Ed Gallrein.

Among the most expensive was a $928,000 ad buy in the Michigan governor's race.

"No greater example of waste, fraud, and abuse in Michigan than using our tax dollars to give benefits to illegal immigrants. As governor, I'll be incredibly supportive of ICE coming here and removing these fraudsters," says Republican candidate Perry Johnson, who calls himself a "MAGA Conservative" and has pitched his business approach to running a state.

Immigration was a winning issue for Republicans in the 2024 elections, with themes like increasing border security and reducing crime.

"Campaigns are not trying to change minds. They're trying to shape what the election's about. They're trying to energize the voters they already have," said Cameron Shelton, a professor of political economy at Claremont McKenna College. "If Republicans are investing much more heavily in immigration advertising, one interpretation is that they believe immigration is exactly that kind of [mobilizing] issue in today's electorate."

Immigration and enforcement are among the top issues for both parties

Most of the ads have run during the primary season, which is now more than half over. Since more than 90% of seats up for grabs in gubernatorial, House and Senate races are considered safe for one party or another, the primary campaign has become decisive for many candidates nationwide.

Some Democrats became more vocal on the issue of immigration at the start of 2026, particularly in states that were seeing intense waves of enforcement. Democrats in New Jersey, Illinois and Minnesota, for example, referenced the administration's tactics in their calls to "abolish ICE," or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and argued the administration had gone too far.

The Illinois Future PAC ran two ads, each worth more than $800,000, earlier this year to support Juliana Stratton's stance on abolishing ICE. The current lieutenant governor later won the Illinois Democratic primary for Senate.

But months into the year, Democrats have prioritized other topics, often to differentiate themselves from members of their own party, like on healthcare, while Republicans are keeping immigration-related themes on Americans' screens.

During the primary season, Shelton said, campaigns are testing out the issues they think might matter through the general election.

For both parties, "Donald Trump" is the top subject in TV ad buys, according to data from AdImpact. "Immigration" is the issue with the second-highest spending for Republicans; for Democrats, "ICE" is the third-highest, after "healthcare."

"It's a signal to donors, it's a signal to activists, to interest groups, to local candidates. It helps coordinate a lot of the actors that we think of as the party," Shelton said. "That's another reason why some of these early ads are interesting, because they are signals of the direction that is trying to be set out."

Republicans link top issues to immigration

Between January and June, Republicans outspent Democrats on immigration-related political advertising by about $36 million. Republican ads focused on immigration, which total $53 million in spending, have aired across the country in 88 races and 27 states. Ads for Democratic candidates, which total $17 million, have run in 20 races and 11 states, primarily those that have seen increased immigration enforcement action like California, New York and Illinois.

"Republican candidates have a large menu of issues we are on the right side of that are all very popular amongst voters," said Mike Marinella, national press secretary at the National Republican Congressional Committee. He listed the border, crime and the economy as issues that Republican candidates can connect to immigration.

"Immigration intersects with each of them," he said. "The most effective message depends on the district and how those issues are affecting that particular community," he added.

Zach Lahn, who won the GOP primary bid for Iowa governor, spent about $475,000 on an ad in May that vowed to ban H-1B visa holders from being hired by Iowa government agencies and universities, linking immigration and economic concerns.

Crossings at the border have plummeted since Trump took office. Marinella said candidates are still keeping the issue of border security top of mind for their voters.

A majority of the ads promoting Republican candidates include keywords such as "securing the border" and discuss border wall funding and crime. Some also go a step further to talk about specific proposals supported by the administration, such as limiting commercial driver's licenses and supporting the SAVE America Act, which would require stricter proof of citizenship to vote.

For example, in Florida's 19th congressional district, Jim Oberweis, one of several candidates vying for the GOP seat, spent $880,000 on seven ads that advocated for ending birthright citizenship.

Democrats lean into pro-immigration statements

Ads promoting Democratic candidates, on the other hand, shy away from specific policy proposals. Instead, they include criticism of incumbents for recent votes on bills that have provided funding to immigration officers or expanded the scope of who could be detained. Others focus on personal connections to immigration, proposals to limit enforcement and general pro-immigrant statements.

"Democrats are finding their voice on immigration after a rough few years during the Biden administration," said Frank Sharry, senior fellow at Third Way, a centrist think tank. "I don't think they'll be running a bunch of ads on it. I do think they'll be speaking to the issue and winning the argument, which is more important than whether they run ads on it or not."

A poll from Gallup released in July shows that most Americans think immigration is a good thing, and a majority support some form of pathway to citizenship rather than a blanket deportation policy — though there are sharp differences by party. A majority of Republicans favor hiring more Border Patrol agents, deporting anyone without legal status and banning sanctuary cities.

Republican ads broadcast during Senate races in Ohio, Texas and Alaska and gubernatorial contests in New York and Iowa are already starting to target Democrats. Strategists said this trend suggests how each party may lean into immigration leading up to the November election. But they also caution against reading too much into advertisements to gauge party strategy.

"Back in the day, ads were king. Now you have so many diverse streams of information arriving to people on their phones that it's just not the same," Third Way's Sharry said, noting interviews, debates, and other forms of public statements aren't captured in the ad data.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Making daylight saving time permanent moved a step closer to reality this week, when the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass a measure to eliminate the annual clock-changing ritual.

But some Orthodox Jewish organizations are fighting to prevent the bill from becoming law.

The measure, called the Sunshine Protection Act, passed in a 308-117 vote in the House on Tuesday (July 14). It now heads to the Senate, where its passage is uncertain. President Donald Trump has championed the effort, describing on his Truth Social account moving the clocks forward and back as a "ridiculous, twice yearly production."

If passed, the bill would give Americans an extra hour of sunshine in the evenings during the winter. But it would also push winter sunrises one hour later. That's of concern to Orthodox Jews, who pray three times a day, beginning with the Shacharit morning prayer service, which by tradition cannot begin in the dark.

"The bottom line is, if prayers have to start an hour later that will have a direct effect on people getting to work and on when schools can start," said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an organization representing U.S. Orthodox Jews.

A constellation of other Orthodox Jewish groups also opposes the measure, including the Orthodox Union and the Coalition for Jewish Values.

In Jewish law, some prayers, such as those in the morning service, can only be said communally, in a quorum of 10 Jewish adults, called a minyan. That requirement means going to synagogue every morning before heading out for work or school and saying prayers, such as the Shema, the central prayer of Jewish life, collectively. The morning service typically lasts 35 minutes but on some occasions can last close to an hour.

"It becomes a communal issue when, for example, a synagogue that has had a morning prayer service for 100 years suddenly does not have a quorum of 10 men who can show up at the prayer time close to 9 o'clock because they have jobs," Motzen said.

Motzen, who works in the Washington, D.C., office of Agudath Israel, said the organization already has the support of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who last year objected to fast-tracking the bill.

Orthodox Jews make up only 9% of the estimated 5.8 million Jewish adults in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center. Larger Jewish groups have not publicly taken a position.

Congress has grappled with turning back the clocks many times. In 1974, it tried to abandon clock-switching, but repealed the law a few months later following public outcry. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a measure making daylight savings time permanent, but the bill died in the House.

Orthodox Jews are not the only constituencies opposed to the change. Some medical and health advocates argue that the human body's internal clock is better aligned with the sun during standard time rather than daylight saving time. School boards and parents are also concerned about children walking to school in pitch-black conditions during winter mornings.

That latter concern, which Motzen described as a safety issue, is one Orthodox Jews share as well.

Making daylight saving time permanent would make sunrise after 8 a.m. in most parts of the country, and after 9 a.m. in a few select places. For example, according to a list compiled by Agudath Israel, sunrise would take place after 9 a.m., (and as late as 9:13 a.m.) for 55 days a year in South Bend, Indiana. In Detroit, Michigan, sunrise would take place after 9 a.m. for 23 days a year.

Hawaii and most of Arizona abide by standard time year round, as do Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.

This story was produced through a collaboration between NPR and Religion News Service.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated July 18, 2026 at 14:11 PM ET

After Medicaid officials improperly shared data about millions of people in January with immigration officials, ICE then shared that data with the data analytics firm Palantir, according to new court filings. Palantir operates an app called ELITE that is used by ICE agents to show the addresses of noncitizens who may be subject to deportation.

That revelation was made public in a motion filed Thursday by more than 20 Democratic attorneys general who sued the Trump administration last year over its data-sharing agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and ICE.

Palantir said in a statement to NPR that the dataset in question had been purged.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in California ruled in December that health officials could share with ICE certain details from Medicaid data about immigrants without lawful status from the states that had sued, such as home addresses, dates of birth and immigration status.

Chhabria, who was appointed by former President Obama, then temporarily paused data sharing between CMS and ICE for immigration enforcement purposes in late May after federal officials admitted CMS had shared data with ICE in January that went beyond what the court order allowed. One dataset of refugees in Minnesota included U.S. citizens, and another that was transferred on Jan. 7 contained data of millions of people, including those in the country legally.

ICE was supposed to delete the improperly shared data. Chhabria set a hearing for August to further clarify his order and clear up ambiguity regarding which categories of noncitizens' data could be lawfully shared with ICE.

But in recent days, federal officials have admitted to additional instances of improper data sharing.

In a court filing last week, the Justice Department said that CMS again inadvertently reshared with ICE the dataset with millions of names that CMS had first improperly shared with ICE in January. The government said the error occurred during an effort to share data from states not involved in the lawsuit.

Alberto Briseno, a section chief for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, wrote in a declaration that ICE personnel deleted the file after it was discovered and it was not used for law enforcement purposes.

Then Briseno revealed that a day later, the agency had done a broader search and discovered that half a dozen users still had a copy of the Jan. 7 dataset.

In that most recent declaration, Briseno said he was not aware of any additional copies of the dataset, but said the recent searches have "highlighted technological difficulties of making a representation that every possible variation of the file has been searched for and located." He added, "ICE will continue to make good faith efforts to delete any copies that may be found in the future."

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is asking the judge to expand his order to allow ICE to receive data on a broader category of noncitizens – to potentially include all immigrants who are not legal permanent residents, citizens or have another form of permanent status.

"ICE's inability to identify Medicaid records in its possession undercuts any claim that the agency should be entitled to more access to that data," the Democratic attorneys generals wrote in their motion filed late Thursday.

Their motion continued, "Each successive revelation of a violation of the Order makes it more difficult for Plaintiff States to have confidence in Defendants' ability to maintain and secure this data in compliance with the Order, and more difficult for Plaintiff States to communicate assurances to Medicaid providers, enrollees (and their counsel), and the public at large about the privacy and confidentiality of their healthcare data."

Palantir provided the following statement to NPR: "Our customers control their own data and manage access to that data. When Palantir employees are granted access to a customer's dataset, it is solely to help integrate and analyze that data — which is what our software does — not to store it or use it for our own purposes. Palantir can confirm that the dataset in question was purged pursuant to government instruction."

DHS didn't immediately return a request for comment about its transfer of data to Palantir.

According to a declaration filed by California deputy attorney general Anna Rich, when plaintiffs asked what federal officials did to ensure Palantir and other contractors had purged the data, defendants responded that the data had been shared over a Microsoft Teams chat and the shared data was deleted from the chat. Rich shared in her declaration a document turned over in discovery from federal officials that shows a redacted transcript of what appears to be ICE personnel asking Palantir to delete the file.

In an April 30 hearing, Chhabria had warned the federal government would not be able to continue using Medicaid data for deportation efforts if it continued improperly sharing the data of citizens and legal immigrants.

"If the federal government cannot be sufficiently careful then it can't use the information, ok?" Chhabria had said.

Copyright 2026 NPR