The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Department of Homeland Security to continue its citizenship verification program.
In a 6-3 shadow docket ruling in the case of DHS v. League of Women Voters, justices allowed the Trump administration to expand the program that allows states to use Social Security records and other information to check voters’ citizenship status.
“By prohibiting interference with the disclosure of information regarding citizenship status to DHS—
“notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, orlocal law”—Congress necessarily authorized DHS to request and receive that information,” the majority opinion says.
The three liberals, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
The majority held that the a 1996 federal law banning noncitizen voting likely authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to obtain citizenship information from other agencies, including state agencies.
Plaintiffs, led by the League of Women Voters, argued this could violate privacy rights. They also argued the used of the SAVE database, short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, is not reliable,and risks purging elligible voters.
In June, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the District of Columbia, ruled that a portion of President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order on election integrity was unlawful.
The case centered on a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to expand the SAVE database—short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. The expansion allowed agencies to search individuals using Social Security numbers, aggregate large amounts of data, and function as a citizenship verification tool to screen voter eligibility.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
