Can the Trump Admin Use FAFSA Data for Immigration Enforcement?
Credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images- More than 17 million students complete FAFSA forms each year.
- Data from those submissions could be used to identify parents and spouses of parents who are in the U.S. without legal immigration status.
- Currently, there are no plans to use FAFSA data for immigration enforcement purposes.
- However, some student advocates worry that such a data-sharing agreement could hurt mixed-status families.
The U.S. has entered a new age of data sharing as part of President Donald Trump’s deportation push, leaving some in higher education wondering if the administration will try to use federal financial aid application submissions for law enforcement purposes.
Currently, there is no known data-sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Education (ED) that would allow law enforcement to identify undocumented immigrant family members from Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) data.
However, the Trump administration in its first 100 days has made significant efforts to use federal agencies’ data to boost immigration enforcement.
At the beginning of April, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) finalized an agreement with DHS to provide the immigration enforcement agency with sensitive taxpayer data on undocumented immigrants. On April 29, The Washington Post reported that the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service was cooperating with DHS to locate people suspected of being in the country illegally
MorraLee Keller, senior consultant for the National College Attainment Network (NCAN), told BestColleges that FAFSA data could feasibly be used to identify people living in the U.S. without proper authorization.
“The short and sweet answer is that for each applicant and their contributor — especially those that have created FSA (Federal Student Aid) accounts — that is a full set of demographic information,” Keller said. “If what you’re looking for is who they are and where they live, it’s there.”
Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), agrees.
“It’s not exactly a one-to-one [match], but from my understanding, it’s pretty close,” she said.
Identifying Information in the FAFSA
Dependent students — usually college students under the age of 25 — must invite contributors to their FAFSA application. Typically, this includes one or both of the student’s parents.
During the application process, Keller said the form asks parents to list their Social Security numbers (SSN) if they have one. Those who don’t have an SSN must say so explicitly.
“I would just say honestly, the predominant reason that someone doesn’t have a Social Security number is that they are ineligible for one,” she said.
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While there are alternative reasons why a legal resident doesn’t have an SSN — perhaps they are still working their way through the immigration process — these explanations are rare, Desjean said. Typically, it’s because someone is an undocumented immigrant living in the U.S.
The same logic applies to FAFSA filers who invite a spouse as a contributor to their form.
Can This Data Be Used for Immigration Enforcement?
Privacy laws should, in theory, prevent agencies other than ED from accessing this sensitive data.
NASFAA clarifies in its guidance that the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prevent the federal government from using FAFSA data for any purpose other than determining financial aid eligibility.
However, Trump’s administration has routinely circumvented privacy concerns since taking office in January.
“While the information provided on the FAFSA has not been used for immigration purposes in the past, there is a possibility that current or future administrations could attempt to use this data for immigration enforcement,” NASFAA states in its guidance.
“Currently, we don’t have any specific information about proposed or actual plans to do this, and we are not aware of any cases where a parent or contributor has faced immigration enforcement due to FAFSA submission.”
NCAN’s November guidance was similar.
“NCAN believes in the transformative power of education and the incredible potential of these students who are U.S. citizens and fully entitled to federal student aid,” it stated. “It is dreadful that students and families have been put in a position of potentially choosing between their safety and the pursuit of postsecondary education.”
Keller added that FAFSA data can’t say definitively whether a parent or spouse is undocumented.
The lack of an SSN number alone isn’t damning, but it could indicate a lack of legal immigration status.
Desjean said the likelier use of FAFSA data would be to find recent addresses for FAFSA contributors already suspected of being in the U.S. without legal immigration status. A lack of SSN may provide further clues to a person’s status.
Potential Workarounds to Protect Student Data
Keller said there is no way to retract a FAFSA once it’s been submitted, so there’s nothing that students and families can do if they’ve already filed a FAFSA. Data is often kept for upwards of 20 years for student loan repayment purposes, so ED may still have data on parents with a student who applied for aid decades ago.
College students who want access to federal financial aid only have one option if they want to exclude their parents from contributing to a FAFSA. It’s a rarely used provision for when a parent refuses to fill out a FAFSA.
“Are the student’s parents refusing to provide their information on this FAFSA form?” the form asks.
Selecting “yes,” however, limits the financial aid options available to that student. Keller said students would only be eligible for unsubsidized federal student loans, which caps out at $5,500 per year.
“$5,500 is not paying for college, and they wouldn’t be able to qualify for a Pell Grant. Anything that’s need-based at the institution, they also won’t be eligible for,” she said. “It really financially penalizes a student that is needy.”
Desjean said NASFAA advises financial aid administrators to explain to students that FAFSA filing is really about “additional” risk. The federal government may already have a contributor’s address or immigration status from other filings, so students should consider this when debating whether to avoid a parent’s contribution.
“It is pretty hard these days to keep your data private,” she said. “There are a lot of different ways that most people [can be] identified in some way.