Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court to Allow Citizenship Verification

The U.S. Justice Department on Sept. 8 requested that the Supreme Court let the government verify the citizenship of voters using a federal immigration database.

A federal judge earlier in the year ruled that the Trump administration was violating privacy laws by using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to verify the citizenship of people on state voter rolls.

An appeals court upheld the ruling on Sept. 4 in a split decision, with the majority concluding that utilizing the database would illegally disclose personal data such as Social Security numbers.

“The district court has issued an indefensible order that threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by states to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes,” Department of Justice lawyers wrote in the new filing to the nation’s top court.

They said the order exceeds the jurisdiction of the court, because the organizations that brought the lawsuit do not have standing, or are not affected by the order in a way that allows them to legally challenge it.

“The court’s order also fails on the merits, as the policy is consistent with all applicable federal statutes,” the filing said. “The order will irreparably harm the federal government, the States, and the public by depriving the government of an effective tool to verify the eligibility of registered voters and benefits applicants under various state and federal programs.”

The groups that brought the litigation, including the League of Women Voters, have not yet responded to the filing.

The litigation was brought after the government enabled bulk queries to SAVE, complying with an order from a different judge that came in a case brought by states that struggled to verify the citizenship of registered voters.

While a majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia panel on Sept. 4 ruled in favor of the groups, Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas dissented. He said that he would have stayed the order blocking the government from using SAVE, pending the outcome of the appeal.

The government’s modified system does not appear to violate the federal law that prohibits disclosure of Social Security numbers and “related records,” according to the judge. He said that the disclosures would only be made to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then convey information about a person’s immigration status or citizenship to state agencies.

“In sum, SAVE responses are not ‘related records’ because they simply repeat identifying information provided by the SAVE user, in the course of conveying any additional, unprotected information about the identified individual’s citizenship status,” Katsas wrote.