The Supreme Court has temporarily revived the Trump administration’s expanded voter-verification database, allowing federal officials to continue sharing Social Security Administration (SSA) data through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The decision is the latest development in the administration’s broader effort to use voter data to identify possible noncitizens on state voter rolls. Earlier litigation focused on the Justice Department’s attempts to obtain unredacted voter-registration records directly from states. This case involves a related but different route: an expanded federal database that allows state and local election officials to compare voter information against SSA records when verifying citizenship.
A Database Gets an Upgrade
SAVE was created in 1986 to help government agencies verify eligibility for public benefits. It historically relied on immigration and citizenship records held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Justice Department, and the State Department. In March 2025, President Donald Trump directed DHS to expand SAVE for voter-citizenship checks and instructed the SSA to share records for that purpose.
The revised system lets state and local agencies conduct bulk searches using a voter’s name, birth date, or full or partial Social Security number. SSA checks the information against its records and shares the results with DHS, which sends the agency either a citizenship confirmation or a request for more information. If SAVE cannot confirm citizenship, the agency must ask the voter for proof before allowing registration or continued registration.
That process raises obvious privacy and accuracy concerns. SSA’s records may not always reflect a person’s current citizenship status, especially for recently naturalized citizens.
Privacy Laws Meet Voter Checks
The League of Women Voters, affiliated organizations, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued DHS, SSA, and other federal officials. They argued that the modified SAVE program violated three federal laws:
- The Social Security Act, which generally makes Social Security numbers and related SSA records confidential.
- The Privacy Act of 1974, which restricts certain nonconsensual disclosures of personal information and requires agencies to follow notice-and-comment procedures for certain changes to records systems.
- The Administrative Procedure Act, which bars federal agencies from acting arbitrarily or contrary to law.
The federal district court agreed. It ruled for the plaintiffs, vacated the updated SAVE program and related notices, and denied the government’s request to keep the program operating while its appeal moved forward. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also declined to grant the government a stay.
The Trump administration then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Steps In
On Friday, September 25, in an unsigned order, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the district court’s ruling. It allowed the modified SAVE program to operate while the case proceeds in the D.C. Circuit without deciding whether the program complies with federal privacy law. The Court concluded that the plaintiffs’ claims were likely to fail, largely based on its reading of 8 U.S.C. §1373, part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
That statute says that, “[n]otwithstanding any other provision” of federal, state, or local law, government entities and officials may not be prohibited or restricted from sending citizenship or immigration-status information to DHS or receiving it from DHS. It also requires DHS to respond to state and local government requests to verify or determine a person’s citizenship or immigration status.
The majority concluded that this language likely authorizes DHS to request and receive citizenship information from agencies such as SSA, even when other laws might otherwise restrict the disclosure. In the Court’s view, reading §1373 otherwise would put government agencies in an “impossible predicament”: disclose information and risk violating privacy statutes, or withhold it and risk violating §1373.
The Court also found that the government faced likely irreparable harm if the program remained blocked because federal law obligates DHS to respond to election officials who are trying to verify a potential voter’s citizenship.
The Dissent Sees a Risky Shortcut
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. She agreed that the plaintiffs likely had standing but argued that §1373 does not authorize the expanded SAVE program or override the Social Security Act and Privacy Act. In her view, the statute prevents officials from blocking otherwise lawful information sharing; it does not create new authority to disclose records that other federal laws make confidential.
Justice Jackson also said DHS and SSA failed to follow the Privacy Act’s required procedures before launching the new system, including publishing notices and allowing public comment. She cautioned that errors in the system could require eligible voters to prove their citizenship to stay on the rolls or be removed. The district court pointed to cases in Texas where one voter was removed from the rolls without knowing it, while others had to prove they were citizens to keep their registrations active.
In Justice Jackson’s view, the risk of burdening or disenfranchising lawful voters outweighed the government’s claimed harm from temporarily being unable to use the program.
What Happens Now
The ruling leaves the modified SAVE program available, at least temporarily. But states are not required to use it. Its practical effect before the 2026 elections could also be limited by the National Voter Registration Act, which generally prohibits states from conducting systematic voter-roll removal programs within 90 days of a federal primary or general election. Interestingly, the scope of that 90-day rule is itself before the Supreme Court. The Court will hear arguments in Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota on Dec. 8, after the midterms. Among other questions, the case asks whether the NVRA permits Arizona to carry out a program within 90 days of a federal election to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens.
Regardless, the Court said that officials may still conduct case-by-case citizenship checks during that period. So, the program may still be used to examine particular voters’ citizenship status, even though broad, systematic list-maintenance efforts are restricted so close to an election.
The underlying case will continue in the D.C. Circuit. If the Supreme Court later takes up the case on the merits, it could answer a consequential question left unresolved by the emergency order: whether a 1996 immigration-information statute permits DHS and SSA to share sensitive Social Security records for voter-citizenship verification despite the confidentiality protections Congress placed elsewhere in federal law.
