ICE will get access to Medicaid enrollees' personal information to help find immigrants.

The federal agency will use Medicaid data to identify and locate people they believe are unlawfully present in the country.

The Trump administration will start sharing the personal information of nearly 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, with federal immigration authorities as the president seeks to ramp up deportations.

In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described the latest data-sharing agreement between her agency and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as "an initiative" to ensure undocumented immigrants don't access Medicaid benefits.

The Associated Press first reported the new agreement, which hasn't been made public yet.

Immigrants who lack legal status and some lawfully present immigrants are already barred from enrolling in Medicaid, a federal health services program that provides nearly free coverage to beneficiaries. Yet federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone regardless of immigration status.

Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.