A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore features of an immigration database.
Judge T. Kent Wetherell II of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled that DHS must ensure that the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) has the ability to process bulk requests and use Social Security numbers (SSNs).
“Most pertinent to the issue framed by Plaintiffs’ motion, the amended complaint alleged that the SAVE system was an ‘inadequate tool’ to verify immigration status because it required a ‘unique immigration identifier’ to run an inquiry and it could not run an inquiry using a Social Security number (SSN), driver’s license number, or other similar identifier,” the filing reads.
Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia later ruled that the updates to the tool violated privacy laws. By complying with the order, the Trump administration violated its original settlement agreement to address its inadequacies.
“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,” he wrote.
The database aligns with a 2025 executive order requiring DHS to share voter databases with states upon request to fulfill their duties in maintaining an “accurate and current Statewide list of every legally registered voter.”
