Nadia Raymond

But ultimately, they put in fake death dates for all those people.

Jeremiah didn't like it, but he did it anyway.

This fixation with the Death Master file, little did Jeremiah know, it was just beginning.

A few weeks after the 150-year-olds, Jeremiah says his higher-ups contacted him with a request from DHS, the Department of Homeland Security.

And this request was unlike anything Jeremiah had seen in his more than 20 years at the agency.

Kill off?

to add these 6,000 or so names to the death master file.

It was strange because normally, deaths are reported by funeral homes or family members or some state authority.

And also, there was no indication from DHS that these people were dead.

They just said, add these people to this list.

So Jeremiah and his colleagues were trying to figure out what's going on and why these 6,000 in particular?

Like, oh, is there a pattern here?

Like, is it all like, is it all people from one area of the country?

Is it like there was no, nothing like that that you were able to see?

DHS also sent a memo from then Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem about, quote, suspected terrorists who she said had social security numbers and access to our financial system.

she asked the SSA to stop it in a way that was, quote, consistent with law.

Jeremiah was pretty sure none of this request to mark 6,000 people as dead was lawful.

No proof of death, for one thing.

So he says he goes and asks someone at the Social Security Office of General Counsel, the lawyers, who tell him, yes, it is illegal.

So Jeremiah and his team refuse.