The Trump Administration’s Citizenship Data System

The Trump administration says it has been rolling out a searchable national data system that can be used by election officials to verify voters’ citizenship. The data system is an expansion of a program operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE).

What is SAVE, and how is it being used?

SAVE has historically been used to check whether immigrants are entitled to government benefits. 

In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to work with DHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to search for “non-citizen voter fraud” using states’ voter rolls, and told the U.S. attorney general to prosecute noncitizens who register to vote. Officials are supposed to complete these tasks using “databases or information maintained” by DHS.

To meet those demands, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) and DOGE began making sweeping changes to the SAVE system so that election officials could use it to check voters’ citizenship.

While we do not know all of the information that has been integrated into the system, DHS has said it includes data from several USCIS databases, the Department of State, state agencies that issue and maintain driver’s licenses, various federal systems including the Department of Education’s student aid database, the Department of Health and Human Service’s Medicaid and Medicare lists, and its own archives, among other sources. In May, USCIS entered a data-sharing agreement with SSA, meaning that election officials could now use SAVE to search for registered voters using their social security numbers.

Why does this matter?

The president is demanding these systems because he continues to claim noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections, even though those claims have been widely discredited. And states are following his lead: Louisiana began using the expanded version of SAVE in May. Alabama entered an agreement with DHS in June, and Indiana’s secretary of state announced it had entered a similar agreement a few weeks later.

By weaponizing federal power to push his false anti-immigrant theories of voter fraud, Trump is doing two things:

1. He is making it harder for eligible people to vote, and undermining fair elections 

The changes to SAVE could be used to justify large-scale voter purges. If someone is improperly removed from the rolls, it could be hard for them to prove their citizenship because many people do not have easy access to the necessary documents, such as a U.S.-issued passport or birth certificate, or naturalization papers. This would be hardest on Black, brown, immigrant, low-income, disabled, and young voters, who already face barriers to voting.

The push for this database also fits within the Trump administration’s larger effort to interfere with future elections, including the 2026 midterms. Trump used the same false claims of voter fraud to justify his desire to ban voting machines and mail-in ballots, despite courts blocking his earlier executive actions that sought to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration. 

2. He is putting sensitive data at risk 

The Trump administration has refused to answer questions about exactly what information is being used, how reliable it is, or how the government plans to keep that data secure.

Privacy experts have voiced concern about the lack of transparency surrounding the data system and its launch, as well as about DOGE’s access to sensitive and personal data. The Privacy Act of 1974 holds that federal agencies must tell the public how they intend to use personal information — and keep it safe — before they begin collecting it, but the data system bypassed this process. The Trump administration’s lack of transparency about exactly what information is being included in the system raises additional concerns that election officials using the tool could potentially exclude eligible voters based on incomplete or out-of-date information.

DOGE teams also ignored standard security protocols, sometimes even before clearing background checks, to access SSA and Treasury systems. After the Supreme Court ruled in June that DOGE could access Americans’ personal information from the SSA, we sued the Treasury and SSA for records related to DOGE’s takeover and data access. It remains unclear what agency-held information has been funneled into the administration’s national data system.

At the same time, the Trump Justice Department has been demanding the release of swaths of private, state-held information about voters.

What we are doing about it

Uncovering facts about what information is being used and how

Over the summer, we obtained records detailing an agreement between DHS and the Texas secretary of state, which allowed the Texas office to use SAVE to verify voters’ citizenship. Earlier drafts of the agreement revealed significant changes, including several that appeared to roll back key voter protections.

Additional records from the Texas secretary of state further reveal DHS was seeking access to the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS) in May, to obtain all states’ driver’s license data at once and “avoid having to connect 50 state databases.” The next month, however, USCIS said that it planned to include individual states’ driver’s license data in SAVE. Other records show the Florida governor’s office has been collaborating with DOGE affiliates at DHS to expand SAVE access to other state agencies.

In August, we teamed up with the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to file 17 public records requests seeking more information about the system and its intended use as a “voter maintenance” tool.

Our requests — sent to DHS, USCIS, SSA, and the “U.S. DOGE Service” — sought records that could show what information is being used in the data system, and how.

We requested top agency officials’ communications about the system and with state election administrators, as well as the agencies’ related contracts, directives, and any related protocols or policies that were created by or shared with DOGE.

Taking the administration to court for failing to release information

After the Supreme Court ruled in June that DOGE could access Americans’ personal information from the SSA, we sued the Treasury and SSA for records related to DOGE’s takeover and data access.

In October, American Oversight and CLC filed multiple lawsuits against DHS, USCIS, and SSA for failing to respond to our records requests. Our lawsuits seek records that could explain how the administration is using SAVE to verify the citizenship of people on state voter rolls. The records could also reveal how agencies are coordinating to build or operate a shared voter-maintenance database.