Federal judge directs DHS to restore voter verification features of SAVE system

A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore some of the key features of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, which states use to verify citizenship and immigration status for voter rolls.

The ruling overturns a D.C. judge's ruling, who determined that the SAVE system's features, including a feature that allowed workers to verify citizenship status through a resident's social security number, violated the Social Security Act and Privacy Act by improperly aggregating and using Americans’ personal data.

The SAVE system was enhanced under the Trump administration to better support state election integrity efforts, including maintenance of state voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II ruled that the DHS violated a settlement with states, including Florida, by disabling the features. Wetherell approved the settlement last year and has maintained jurisdiction to enforce the settlement.

"Defendants are plainly in violation of the settlement agreement because it is undisputed that they disabled the bulk-upload and SSN-search features that the agreement expressly required the SAVE system to have," he wrote in the order. "The fact that defendants disabled those features to comply with [the judge's] order does not change the fact that they violated the agreement."

Wetherell determined that the features did not violate federal law, concluding the SSN-search functions align with 8 U.S.C. §1373, which overrides other restrictions on sharing citizenship or immigration status information, according to Florida's Voice News.

The judge ordered defendants to file a status report on its compliance with the latest order by July 14.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.