Supreme Court greenlights national citizenship database ahead of midterms

President Trump’s baseless election fraud claims surrounding widespread noncitizen voting have led to a slew of legal battles ahead of the November election.WASHINGTON (CN) — In an emergency order, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to let the Trump administration resurrect a national citizenship database using Social Security information for voter verification during the midterm elections.A lower court blocked the Department of Homeland Security from collecting individuals’ Social Security numbers, citizenship status and other private data in a searchable repository, finding it violated federal privacy laws prohibiting the nonconsensual disclosure of sensitive information.The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block the ruling, claiming it threatened the integrity of the November elections by interfering with the federal government’s role in responding to states’ citizenship verification requests.President Donald Trump instructed Homeland Security to modify the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system known as SAVE under an executive order he said would shore up election integrity.The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service tool was created in 1986 to allow federal, state, local or tribal governments to search an individual’s immigration and nationality status to determine their eligibility for a public benefit, a license or grant, a government credential, or to assist in a background check.Under the executive order, it was modified to include the records of natural-born citizens, to access Social Security records, including Social Security numbers, and to permit bulk searches of records by SAVE users.In addition to the SAVE tool, the Trump administration created another “Interagency Data System” that consolidates other governmental data sources that may have information concerning immigrants into a centralized “data lake” at USCIS, which includes millions of Americans’ Social Security numbers, biometric data, tax information, employment and medical records, among others.The League of Women Voters — joined by chapters in Virginia and Louisiana as well as the Electronic Privacy Information Center — filed a lawsuit over the modifications in September 2025, comparing the database to the dossiers kept on citizens by the fictional Oceania in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”The groups urged the justices to reject DHS’ emergency application, claiming the government had “recklessly created an error-laden master citizenship database that endangers millions of Americans’ privacy and voting rights.”The Trump administration argued the SAVE modifications does not disqualify voters because the tool only notifies states whether the federal government could confirm citizenship. Therefore, the administration said the challengers would need to file lawsuits against the states that choose to disqualify voters based on SAVE data to receive relief.DHS said the SAVE system processes millions of citizenship-verification requests every week for a range of purposes from maintaining voter rolls to verifying federal benefit eligibility. The Trump administration argued the federal government, the states and the public faced irreparable harm by forcing DHS to use “an older, more cumbersome, and less reliable version of the system,” especially ahead of the November elections.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads