Trinidad-born U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan has blocked the Trump administration’s use of a revamped federal citizenship verification database, ruling that the system violates privacy protections and threatens voting rights.
In a 75-page decision issued on Monday, Sooknanan halted the administration’s expanded use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which had been redesigned to help state and local election officials verify the citizenship status of registered voters.
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“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote in her ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
The case centered on changes made by the United States Department of Homeland Security, which expanded the SAVE system to allow election officials easier access to citizenship and immigration records in an effort to identify non-citizens on voter rolls.
However, the judge determined that the revised database improperly combined sensitive personal information, including Social Security data, in ways that violated federal privacy laws. She also found that inaccurate records could lead to eligible American citizens being wrongly flagged as non-citizens, potentially resulting in voter registration cancellations.
The ruling represents a significant setback for the Trump administration’s broader election-security agenda, which has emphasized stricter voter verification measures and efforts to prevent non-citizen voting.
NBC News reported that Sooknanan concluded the expanded system breached legal restrictions governing the disclosure of Social Security numbers and other protected personal information. Her decision immediately stops the implementation of the revised SAVE database while legal challenges continue.
The case is expected to move through the appeals process, with the administration likely to seek a reversal of the ruling. For now, the decision preserves existing limits on how federal citizenship and Social Security data can be shared with state election officials.
