The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to deploy its expanded citizenship database, overturning a June ruling by U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Soonnan that had blocked the system. The judge, a Biden appointee, found that the federal government had 'knowingly trampled on the privacy rights' of U.S. citizens 'in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.'
The Department of Homeland Security's SAVE program was originally created in 1986 to verify citizenship or immigration status for public benefits applicants. Last year, the Trump administration expanded its search capabilities to allow bulk searches using Social Security numbers and other sensitive data, aiming to identify noncitizens on voter rolls.
The court's conservative majority ruled 6-3, with the three liberal justices — including Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissenting. Jackson wrote that 'the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take.'
Critics have questioned the reliability of the database, noting it has erroneously flagged U.S. citizens. Voting rights groups and Democrats warned the ruling could lead to eligible voters being wrongly removed from electoral rolls. The Guardian reported that Trump and officials claim the system combats voting by noncitizens, while critics contend it could disenfranchise eligible voters.
Despite the ruling, the National Voter Registration Act prohibits broad purges of voter rolls within 90 days of an election, which may limit the system's use for sweeping checks before the midterms. States can still verify the citizenship of individual voters using SAVE, but mass removals are likely restricted.
Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer and frequent Trump critic, urged Americans not to 'overreact' to the decision, noting the limited window before November. The Biden administration had argued the overhaul violated privacy protections, and a federal appeals court had allowed the lower court's injunction to stand before the Supreme Court intervened.