The true purpose of DOGE was to exfiltrate sensitive data from the IRS, SSA, Medicaid, and other agencies. We may never know what all they have done/are doing with it, but it's certainly playing a role in the current immigration crackdowns.
Long term it will affect us all, likely more than the cuts the news prefers to focus on (tragic though they may be).
Why on earth would they need something as visible and aggressive as DOGE to extract data?
Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending (especially spending viewed as ideological) doing far more harm than good?