Demanding Answers about the Trump Administration’s National Citizenship Data System

The Trump administration says it has been rolling out a searchable national data system for election officials to verify voters’ citizenship — a significantly expanded and legally dubious use of personal data that props up the president’s xenophobic myths about voting in U.S. elections. The system fuels anti-voting rights activists’ calls for laws and policies that disenfranchise eligible voters and can chill voter turnout, especially among people of color and naturalized citizens.

The system, operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), is composed of personal data about millions of people living in the United States, collected from existing federal databases. At the same time, the Trump Justice Department has been demanding the release of swaths of private, state-held information about voters. It appears that the administration intends for election officials to use the system as part of the voter registration process and to maintain voter lists, and it claims that it will remove noncitizens from the rolls. But it 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.

Instances of noncitizens voting in federal elections are incredibly rare, and anti-democracy activists have wielded the alleged issue to bolster xenophobic sentiment and push for laws that require people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. These laws make it harder for legally eligible people to vote as many do not have easy access to the documents required to prove citizenship. The associated anti-immigrant rhetoric can also intimidate immigrant voters and people of color, who already face barriers to participation in our democracy, making it even more difficult for them to vote.

The Trump administration’s lack of transparency surrounding the system’s creation and function heightens fears about its potential weaponization of sensitive information to target immigrants and voting rights. That’s why American Oversight and Campaign Legal Center filed 17 public records requests seeking more information about the system. 

Our requests, sent in August to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the “U.S. DOGE Service” (USDS), and the Social Security Administration (SSA), seek records that could show what information is being used in the data system and how that data is being used. We requested top agency officials’ communications about the system and with state election administrators, as well as the agencies’ related contracts, directives, and trainings, including any related protocols or policies that were created by or shared with DOGE.

The system came to national attention in March, when President Trump signed an executive order directing DOGE to work with the SSA and DHS to search for alleged “non-citizen voter fraud” using states’ voter rolls. The order also instructed the U.S. attorney general to prioritize prosecuting noncitizens who register to vote, whether or not they actually cast a ballot, using “databases or information maintained” by DHS. Campaign Legal Center, alongside the State Democracy Defenders Fund and on behalf of LULAC, Secure Families Initiative, and Arizona Students’ Association, is challenging this order. Litigation has already blocked a provision that would have required the Election Assistance Commission to add burdensome documentation requirements to the federal voter registration form. 

Weeks after Trump issued that order, USCIS began making sweeping changes to DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system — which has historically only been used to check whether legal immigrants are entitled to government benefits — and credited DOGE with the expansion. In May, USCIS announced that SAVE had integrated information from SSA, meaning that election officials could now use that service to search for registered voters using their social security numbers.

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.

The Trump administration’s searchable citizenship data system severely endangers the voting rights of those whose citizenship is questioned, putting immigrants,naturalized citizens and other historically marginalized communities at heightened risk of disenfranchisement based on inaccessible and likely stale, incomplete, or unreliable data. The potential for misuse and compromise of Americans’ personal information is extreme, and the public deserves to know what private information has already been put at risk.