Challenging the Consolidation and Distribution of Federal Citizenship Data for Voter Purges (League of Women Voters v. US Dept. of Homeland Sec.)

Historically, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has maintained a database on immigrants that tracks their immigration status and citizenship status called “SAVE.” The original purpose of the SAVE database was to provide government agencies with a resource to check whether individuals were eligible for government benefits based on their immigration or citizenship status.  

In recent years, a handful of states have used SAVE as part of their voter registration system. SAVE can be used to attempt to confirm the citizenship status of an individual either at the time they apply to register or after they have been added to the state’s voter registration list.  

Because the SAVE system only contained information regarding immigrants, it could not be used to confirm the citizenship status of U.S.-born citizens.  

The information SAVE has about individuals is often outdated, meaning that people could be categorized as noncitizens in SAVE even long after they have become a naturalized citizen and eligible to vote.  

Now, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which oversees USCIS — has entered into an agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to incorporate SSA’s data into the SAVE system, data that includes U.S.-born citizens. As a result, many government agencies will be able to access this combined database of all Americans.  

This newly incorporated SSA data is notoriously unreliable. SSA is not entrusted with making citizenship determinations or formally tracking citizenship status. Incorporating unreliable citizenship data could result in citizens erroneously having their voter registration application denied or erroneously being purged from voter registration lists.    

On September 30, 2025, a group of plaintiffs led by the League of Women Voters filed suit in federal court challenging the legality of DHS’s data consolidation efforts. The suit claims that DHS’s centralization of data on Americans violates the Privacy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the separation of powers required by the Constitution.

Campaign Legal Center submitted an amicus brief highlighting the separation-of-powers concerns implicated by DHS’s intervention in verifying voter eligibility.

Only Congress and the states have the power to set rules about our elections, not the president. This attempt to consolidate private and sensitive data by DHS is part of a larger effort to shift election administration functions into the executive branch.

Voter purges, or efforts to remove a significant number of voters from the registration rolls all at once, ultimately threaten Americans’ freedom to vote and tend to disproportionately target people with past felony convictions, voters of color, low-income voters and young voters.