U.S. Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration Use SAVE System Ahead Of 2026 Midterms

SAVE System Revived

The U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions on the Trump administration’s use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system on Friday, granting the Department of Homeland Security a temporary green light to use the expanded federal citizenship database ahead of the midterms.

The court’s 6-3 decision revived the expanded immigration data registry after justices granted the Justice Department’s request to lift a court injunction that had blocked state officials from using Social Security numbers and other information for comprehensive checks of registered voters’ citizenship status.

The majority said federal law allows the Department of Homeland Security to request and receive citizenship and immigration status information from other agencies, including the Social Security Administration, and the court said the order below prevented the federal government from using the program it believed was best suited to the task.

The court’s conservative majority also concluded that the National Voter Registration Act blunts the ruling’s impact by prohibiting states from purging voters within 90 days of the election, while permitting individualized inquiries during that period.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning that the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm to the government when it is prevented from taking an action it likely lacks authority to take.

Reporting for this sectionABC NewsSahifat al-Khaleej

Dissents and Privacy Risks

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the Supreme Court’s approach would risk disenfranchising lawful voters, writing, "In my view, however, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm". The League of Women Voters warned that the decision would put voters at risk, saying it "puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration's unreliable voter purge database weeks before the midterm elections." The BBC reported that a federal judge had ruled in June that the revamped system showed the federal government "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights" of U.S. citizens "in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote."

The Supreme Court majority said the National Voter Registration Act prohibits broad purge efforts of voter names in the weeks before an election, which limits any "potential impact" of the decision ahead of the midterms. The Supreme Court also said the use of SAVE by individual states is voluntary, while the emergency order stayed the lower-court block as litigation continued.

Reporting for this sectionBBCAxios

What Happens Next

The Supreme Court’s order cleared the way for states, for now, to use the Department of Homeland Security program called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, in efforts to verify the eligibility of voters on their rolls. The ruling put on hold a federal judge’s June ruling that had deemed the Republican administration’s recently revamped version of SAVE illegal, and a federal appeals court had let that judge’s order stand before the Supreme Court intervened. The court said the federal government has "an obligation to respond" to states seeking to verify citizenship, and the majority wrote that the lower court’s order "prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task."

In Travis County, Texas, officials said they investigated 97 voters flagged by SAVE as apparent noncitizens and found that at least 10% of them, and likely up to 21%, were U.S. citizens. The BBC said 27 states currently use the system to check voter citizenship, and the court’s emergency order is not the final say on whether the overhaul is lawful as the appeal proceeds.

Reporting for this sectionABC7 Los AngelesBBC