Federal Judge Orders DHS to Restore Key Features of Immigration Database

A federal judge on July 7 ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to restore key features of an immigration database, several weeks after a different judge said officials must roll back updates to the database.

U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II said on Tuesday that DHS must ensure the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system has the ability to process bulk upload requests from states and full searches utilizing Social Security numbers.

The updates were implemented in 2025 under a settlement agreement with Florida, which sued the federal government after Florida officials found the SAVE immigration database was inadequate to verify the immigration status of individuals.

Wetherell, who is based in Florida, approved the settlement agreement and previously found the updates legal.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, based in the District of Columbia, in June concluded that the updates violated privacy laws and ordered the Trump administration to roll them back.

The administration has complied with the order, which puts it in violation of the settlement agreement, Wetherell said.

He noted that the government has requested that he defer a ruling until Sooknanan or a federal appeals court rules on its request to stay her order pending appeal.

“The Court sees no reason to do so because there is no guarantee that a stay will be granted and Plaintiffs submitted unrebutted evidence showing that they are suffering real and concrete harm every day that passes without the disabled features of the SAVE system,” he wrote, referring to Florida officials.

“Moreover, the principles of comity that might otherwise weigh in favor of deferring consideration of the motion to enforce until Judge Sooknanan and/or the D.C. Circuit determines whether to enter a stay are not entitled to much weight here because if Judge Sooknanan had deferred to this Court’s implicit determination that the modifications to the SAVE system were lawful, the parties (and the courts) would not be in the current predicament.”

Wetherell also said that he reviewed Sooknanan’s ruling and disagreed with her conclusions.

As an example, he pointed to her conclusion that allowing Social Security number searches in SAVE violated the Social Security Act. While that act does prohibit the Social Security Administration from generally disclosing Social Security numbers, it does not preclude the administration from doing so for immigration enforcement purposes, Wetherell said.

DHS was ordered to immediately reinstate Florida’s access to the new features of the SAVE system and to file a status report in seven days regarding its compliance and the status of the proceedings of the case in Washington.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.