Common Good

Billionaire private equity executive Antonio Gracias has had a busy year. In March, as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Gracias was sent in search of supposed fraud at the Social Security Administration. A few weeks later — at a rally with his longtime friend and then-head of DOGE, Elon Musk — Gracias claimed to have found it. Echoing a right-wing conspiracy theory, Gracias said an increase in Social Security numbers assigned to noncitizens looked like a move to ​“import voters.” In fact, eligible non-citizens are routinely assigned Social Security numbers as part of the federal work authorization process, but they cannot vote. Undocumented immigrants pay billions into Social Security each year but cannot receive benefits.