(UNITED STATES) — A federal judge permanently barred the Trump administration on June 22, 2026, from using an overhauled federal database to verify voters’ citizenship, delivering a major legal setback to the president’s second-term agenda to nationalize election integrity standards less than five months before the November midterm elections.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan issued a 75-page decision prohibiting the government from deploying the revamped Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program for bulk voter eligibility checks against state registration rolls. The ruling also blocks implementation of a proof of citizenship requirement for individuals registering to vote through the federal mail-in form, a change the administration had pursued through executive action.

“All in all, 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. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

The administration “flunked compliance” with the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act by “haphazardly” combining and repurposing “the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable,” the ruling stated.

James Percival, General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, criticized the decision in a statement shared by the department on June 23, 2026. “It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist,” Percival said.

One day later, the Department of Justice confirmed its intent to appeal. “The Department will continue to aggressively defend President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and DHS’s use of the SAVE system to ensure that only eligible citizens participate in our democracy,” the DOJ said in a statement on June 24, 2026.

Managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the SAVE program has historically served a narrow function within the federal government. Agencies used the system to verify the immigration status of non-citizens applying for public benefits, conducting checks one applicant at a time on a case-by-case basis. The program was designed to answer a single question for benefit administrators: whether a particular individual was lawfully present in the United States and eligible for the benefit being sought.

Two executive orders reshaped that function. Executive Order 14248 and Executive Order 14399, signed on March 31, 2026, directed the transformation of the SAVE program into a tool allowing states to perform bulk citizenship checks against their entire voter registration databases. The overhaul represented a fundamental shift from individualized verification to mass screening of voter rolls, expanding the program’s scope from benefit eligibility to election administration.

For the first time, the revamped system integrated records from the Social Security Administration with DHS immigration data. That combination created a centralized federal database containing personal information on both citizens and non-citizens, a structure the court found violated long-standing legal restrictions. Sensitive data collected for one purpose, administering Social Security benefits and tracking immigration status, was being repurposed for an entirely different function without the safeguards normally required for such a shift.

Sooknanan determined that the administration failed to provide the public notice required by the Privacy Act before implementing the data integration. The Privacy Act mandates that federal agencies publish detailed descriptions of new systems of records in the Federal Register, giving citizens an opportunity to understand and comment on how their personal information will be used. The court found that the administration bypassed this requirement entirely.

Beyond the Privacy Act violations, the court found that officials violated congressional prohibitions against creating centralized federal databases of personal identifying information. These restrictions were enacted to prevent the federal government from compiling comprehensive dossiers on American citizens without explicit authorization from Congress. By merging SSA and DHS records into a single searchable system, the administration constructed exactly the type of database that lawmakers had sought to prevent.

Evidence presented during the proceedings showed the system was already producing errors in practice. In Texas, the modified database had mistakenly flagged naturalized U.S. citizens as non-citizens, placing their voting rights at risk of being stripped. Sooknanan cited these errors as proof that the citizenship data being repurposed for voter verification was unreliable, directly undermining the administration’s central justification for the overhaul.

DHS immigration records create an inherent reliability gap. When a non-citizen naturalizes, the agency updates its files, but those updates are not always immediate or complete. A naturalized citizen’s record may still reflect their prior status as a legal permanent resident or visa holder, creating a false match when the SAVE system cross-references voter rolls against immigration databases. The court found that the administration was aware of this reliability problem and proceeded anyway.

Less than five months before the November 2026 midterm elections, the ruling halts what the court described as a central pillar of the administration’s strategy to purge voter rolls of ineligible registrants. States that had planned to use the revamped SAVE system to screen their voter databases cannot do so while the injunction remains in effect.

Sooknanan’s ruling reinforces the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, a federal law that limits the types of documentation states can require for voter registration. The NVRA was enacted to streamline the registration process and prevent states from imposing requirements that could disenfranchise eligible voters, particularly those with limited access to documents such as passports or birth certificates. Congress designed the law to establish a uniform federal standard that states could not override with stricter demands.

By blocking the proof of citizenship requirement, the decision affirms the NVRA’s restrictions on what states may demand from individuals using the federal mail-in registration form. The court found that imposing a documentary proof of citizenship requirement, such as a birth certificate or passport, violated the separation of powers. Congress had already established the terms for federal voter registration through the NVRA, and the executive branch could not unilaterally override those terms through executive order.

Naturalized citizens stand to benefit most directly from the injunction. This group was most frequently flagged as non-citizens by the SAVE system because DHS immigration records often lag behind naturalization dates, creating false matches that incorrectly identify citizens as non-citizens. The court’s ruling removes the immediate threat of naturalized citizens being purged from voter rolls based on outdated or incomplete federal data.

Privacy protections also emerge from the decision. The ruling prevents the federal government from sharing the Social Security numbers and private data of millions of Americans with state election officials without stricter safeguards in place. Sooknanan found that the administration’s approach to data sharing was haphazard, lacking the legal grounding and procedural protections required for transferring sensitive information across federal and state agencies.

Individuals registering to vote using the federal mail-in form are not required to provide documentary proof of citizenship under the current framework. The court found that the NVRA’s existing requirements, which ask registrants to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury, represent the standard Congress intended. The administration’s attempt to impose a stricter documentary requirement exceeded the executive branch’s authority under the law.

An appeal sets the stage for a prolonged legal fight over the boundaries of executive authority in election administration. Any reversal by a higher court would restore the administration’s ability to deploy the SAVE system for bulk voter checks. The injunction stays in effect until a higher court rules otherwise, preserving the existing registration framework through the midterm election cycle.

At stake is whether a federal immigration database can be repurposed for voter verification without congressional approval, and whether the executive branch can impose new registration requirements that Congress has explicitly declined to enact. The appeals courts will now be asked to resolve those questions, with implications extending well beyond the 2026 midterms.