A federal judge on June 22 blocked the Trump administration’s expansion of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, ruling that federal agencies unlawfully combined social security and voter registration data to conduct citizenship checks for voter-roll reviews.
The ruling stems from a March 2025 executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expand SAVE, a database originally designed to help federal, state, tribal, and local agencies verify citizenship or immigration status when administering government benefits and licenses.
Under the directive, DHS incorporated social security and voter registration information into the system to support large-scale voter eligibility reviews by states.
The League of Women Voters, several state affiliates, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center challenged the changes, arguing that the administration unlawfully merged sensitive federal records to support voter-roll removals and criminal investigations.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan agreed.
“The agencies were scrambling to comply with an executive order aimed at reshaping federal elections, which directed them to create a system for mass voter verification,” Sooknanan wrote in her 75-page ruling. “So, they haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable.”
The judge said states had already used the database to review voter rolls and were “actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”
The court found that the modified SAVE system violated provisions of the Social Security Act that restrict disclosure of Social Security records, as well as Privacy Act requirements governing the collection and sharing of personal information. The ruling also found agencies failed to follow required notice-and-comment procedures before implementing the changes.
“Decades ago, Congress put protections in place to prevent precisely this type of centralized data bank,” Sooknanan wrote. “And the record in this case shows that the federal agencies that created this database knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
The judge further concluded that the system violated the Administrative Procedure Act and ordered the modified SAVE system and related notices vacated and set aside.
“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote.
The administration launched the expanded SAVE system on May 22, 2025. According to the court’s ruling, however, no agency published a Systems of Records Notice or provided the public an opportunity to comment before implementing the changes, which later became a central issue in the lawsuit.
According to the ruling, some members of the plaintiff organizations were incorrectly identified as noncitizens after states used the expanded system to review voter rolls, resulting in canceled voter registrations.
The federal government argued the plaintiffs lacked standing, that the challenged actions did not constitute final agency action, and that the modifications were authorized under immigration law. The court rejected those arguments before ruling for the plaintiffs on the merits.
“Today’s decision is a resounding victory for voters,” Marcia Johnson, chief of activation and justice for the League of Women Voters, said in a statement. “Efforts to create a federal voter database to facilitate voter purges threaten the fundamental right at the heart of our democracy. The League of Women Voters will continue advocating for an electoral system where every eligible voter can participate with confidence and where elections remain fair, accurate, and accessible.”