Texas Records Raise Red Flags Over Voter Citizenship Check Agreement with DHS
Records include the final agreement between the Texas secretary of state’s office and DHS, as well as revisions to the agreement and internal emails that raise concerns about due process and voter roll purges.
Newly obtained documents from the Texas Secretary of State’s office raise serious concerns about how the state is using a federal immigration data service to check the citizenship status of registered voters. The records, obtained by American Oversight through public records requests and reported on by the Texas Tribune, include a final memorandum of agreement (MOA) between Texas and the Department of Homeland Security concerning use of DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) service — and a draft version with tracked changes revealing how key voter protections were rolled back.
The draft MOA shows that Texas officials attempted to and successfully weakened a requirement that voters be provided notice and due process before actions are taken to limit their voting rights.
“Texas’ use of a flawed immigration data service to target voters is a reckless and discriminatory practice that threatens the fundamental right to vote,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “These records make clear that the state is weakening basic protections like notice and due process — putting eligible voters at risk of disenfranchisement based on unreliable data. This kind of voter purge effort not only undermines election integrity, it violates the principles of transparency and fairness that our democracy depends on.”
“The freedom to vote is essential in our democracy,” said Danielle Lang, Senior Director for Voting Rights at Campaign Legal Center. “With these records, American Oversight has uncovered some of the first glimpses into the Trump Administration’s opaque attempt to meddle in our elections and threaten that right — using potentially stale, unreliable, or incomplete data to deny Americans access to the polls. Despite attempts to deny Americans their right to transparency in how our elections are run, the documents American Oversight has uncovered here begin to peel back the curtain on this process as it plays out in Texas and provide vital insight into the program at its early stages.”
In one edit, clear references to the “right to vote” were replaced with vague technical language about voter roll maintenance. Another change weakened the requirement for state officials to contact voters whose citizenship could not be verified through SAVE — limiting such outreach to only “if necessary,” rather than requiring it in every case.
Additionally, internal emails also revealed that as recently as May, Texas uploaded at least 1,657 voter records for citizenship checks through SAVE, with nearly 20% producing errors, indicating the service is deeply flawed and that proper notice and due process are critical to preserving the rights of those whose citizenship status is questioned.