During a political rally in Wisconsin on March 30, tech mogul Elon Musk — an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump — was joined by billionaire investor and Department of Government Efficiency operative Antonio Gracias to reveal, the pair claimed (archived), a "massive, large-scale program" that issued millions of Social Security numbers to "as many illegals as possible" under the Biden administration.
Standing in front of large chart showing the number of SSNs issued under the Enumeration Beyond Entry program in fiscal years 2018 to 2025, Musk told the crowd:
People sometimes think that under the Biden administration, that he was simply asleep at the switch. They weren't asleep at the switch — it was a massive, large-scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent deep-blue, one-party state from which there would be no escape.
Following the event, claims spread across social media including X (archived), Facebook (archived), Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived) that millions of noncitizens or "illegals" got SSNs during the Biden administration.
However, Enumeration Beyond Entry, a joint Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services program from which Musk and Gracias took their numbers, issues SSNs only to migrants who have successfully applied for employment authorization, lawful permanent residency or naturalization — also known as the right to work, a green card or citizenship. These groups are, by definition, not "illegal."
Most working adults in the U.S. need a Social Security number to link their financial information, such as earnings, to their identity and qualify for Social Security benefits.
Musk and Gracias further claimed that people given SSNs under the EBE program were receiving benefits and voting. While a Social Security number does allow the holder to qualify for the SSA's benefits system, it was unclear how having an SSN allowed noncitizens to vote.
We reached out to the SSA, USCIS and Office of Homeland Security Statistics to confirm the number of Social Security numbers issued under EBE and shown in Musk and Gracias' chart. We'll update this piece if we receive a response.
We also reached out to DOGE for more details on Gracias' claim that people granted SSNs under the program were able to vote and await a reply.
A Trump-era program that expanded under Biden
According to a 2019 audit report of Enumeration Beyond Entry, the program started in 2017 during the first Trump administration.
The EBE streamlined the existing system by allowing the Social Security Administration to use data from specific applications (initially employment authorization and permanent-resident status) received by USCIS to enumerate, or give an SSN to, successful applicants. Before the EBE program, applicants would have to visit an SSA field office or Social Security Card Center in addition to submitting the relevant forms to apply for employment authorization.
The SSA's Program Operations Manual System read (guidelines updated in February 2025):
EBE is an option for those who
- applied for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD, Form I-766) and submitted Form I-765 (Application for Employment Authorization)
- applied for Permanent Resident Status (Green Card, Form I-551) and submitted Form I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status); or,
- applied for a Certificate of Naturalization (form N-550) and submitted Form N-400 (Application for Naturalization).
The program issued 82,202 SSNs from Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, according to the audit report.
According to an expanded chart posted (archived) to X by Gracias, this number rose to 350,399 in fiscal year 2019 (October 2018 to September 2019) and 400,621 in FY2020.
Your data is apples to oranges. The data you show for the 2016 to 2020 period is enumeration for all immigrants in ALL forms. The data we showed in our slide last night in Wisconsin was just Enumeration Beyond Entry ("EBE") immigrants. The difference is Enumerations at Field… https://t.co/iDaFPbcL0u pic.twitter.com/XNNFQb51Di
— agracias (@AntonioGracias) April 1, 2025
Musk and Gracias highlighted fiscal year 2024 (October 2023 to September 2024), during Biden's presidency to say that the administration was trying to "import as many illegals as possible." The SSA issued 2,095,247 Social Security numbers through EBE in that fiscal year.
However, speaking to Rolling Stone, former SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley, who served for much of fiscal year 2024, said the increase in SSNs issued under Biden could be explained by actions taken by the administration to expand the EBE program to more legal immigrants.
In April 2024, USCIS announced the EBE program would be expanded to include Form N-400, a form used by groups including lawful permanent residents (commonly known as green Card holders) to apply for naturalization (citizenship). Effectively, the 2024 expansion of EBE to include Form N-400 meant that most adults applying for U.S. citizenship could get their SSN through the program.
The Office of Homeland Security Statistics had not yet released naturalization figures for fiscal year 2024 at the time of this writing, so it was not possible to directly compare the rise in SSNs issued under EBE to the number of naturalizations in the same period to evidence O'Malley's claim.
No proof of 'max' benefits or voting
Gracias made a series of additional claims about people who got Social Security numbers through EBE.
Firstly, he said DOGE found that some of the people who got their SSNs through the program were receiving "max" benefits. Generally, people with SSNs are eligible for Social Security benefits after they earn enough credits, which are based on salary.
Gracias said:
The defaults in the system, from all of the benefits programs, have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people. That's what happening. We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid.
We did not find up-to-date, publicly available data to support this claim.
Gracias also claimed that DOGE had found names of several people who were issued a Social Security number under EBE and went on to vote. It was unclear how this was possible, as noncitizens, including permanent legal residents, cannot vote without becoming U.S. citizens, except in some local elections. A possible explanation could be that applicants who used Form N-400 to apply for naturalization and an SSN at the same time would be citizens upon successful application and thus able to vote.
We reached out to Gracias through DOGE's X account and his company, Valor Equity Partners, for further comment.