(IOWA) — The Iowa Senate passed five bills on February 25, 2026, requiring the state to use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, known as SAVE, to verify immigration status across voter registration, driver’s licenses, state employment, school employment, and professional licensing.
Lawmakers advanced the package in a single legislative push, sending the measures to the Iowa House for consideration and setting up a broader debate over how Iowa should use federal immigration-status data in state-administered functions.
Supporters framed the bills as a way to improve data quality and tighten administrative checks, while opponents warned the SAVE system can produce errors that could spill into voter rolls and other public-facing processes.
Senate File 2203, the most politically charged of the bills, would require the Iowa Secretary of State to check SAVE to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens.
Under current practice, voters must simply attest to their citizenship when registering. SF 2203 would add a SAVE query step tied to Iowa’s voter registration records and create a formal process to handle registrants flagged as potential noncitizens.
The Iowa Senate passed SF 2203 by a 34-13 vote on February 25, 2026.
Supporters tied the proposal to a claim by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who found that 35 noncitizens voted in Iowa’s 2024 election. The election had a total voter turnout of 1.67 million.
Sen. Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Pella, described SAVE as part of an effort to improve list maintenance, saying it “is a tool to use to help us clean up voter registration data.”
SF 2203 lays out what happens after a SAVE query flags a registrant as a noncitizen. The bill would require a county auditor to notify the voter and provide information about how to cancel their registration or prove their citizenship.
Flagged individuals would have 90 days to provide proof of citizenship or contact USCIS.
The proposal’s next steps depend on the Iowa House, which will decide whether to take up the bill, send it through committee review, amend it, and bring it to the floor for a vote.
Rozenboom and other supporters pointed to SAVE as a standardized federal check that could help identify inaccurate records. They argued that even a small number of noncitizens voting warrants a more formal verification process to keep voter rolls current.
Backers also cast the bill as an election-integrity and data-quality measure rather than a change aimed at eligible voters. The underlying premise in debate centered on whether state election officials should lean more heavily on a federal database to verify citizenship status after a voter is already registered.
SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, is a federal verification system used to verify immigration status and eligibility for benefits and entitlements. Iowa’s package would apply the program beyond public assistance to multiple state functions, from election administration to employment and licensing.
In broad terms, SAVE checks rely on federal records to confirm an individual’s immigration status and can produce different outcomes, including confirmations and cases that need additional verification. Lawmakers arguing over the Iowa bills focused on what happens when a record does not match as expected, or when information appears incomplete or outdated.
Accuracy claims became a central point of contention in the Senate debate. Rozenboom said that “according to the federal government, SAVE has a 99.16% accuracy rate,” while Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, a Republican from Fort Dodge, said the program is “rated 99.99 percent effective by USCIS.”
Opponents pressed lawmakers on what those figures mean in practice when a person is flagged, and how often an incorrect flag could force eligible voters or job applicants to navigate an added administrative process. The discussion centered less on the mechanics of the database itself than on the consequences of an erroneous mismatch, especially in elections where timing and notice procedures can affect participation.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat from West Des Moines, argued the proposal could compound problems rather than solve them, saying, “This bill is not a fix. This bill does not enhance election integrity. This bill is going to send us down the road of more bad data that will make things worse.”
Trone Garriott also raised concerns tied to voter experience, pointing to issues involving absentee ballots. She said she worked with constituents whose absentee ballots were incorrectly flagged as ineligible despite being citizens.
Those concerns echoed a broader argument from opponents that adding a SAVE-based screening layer could create new points of failure, from database mismatches to confusion over what documentation satisfies a proof-of-citizenship request. Critics also questioned whether the administrative work created by notices and follow-up could strain county auditors and election offices, even when most flagged voters ultimately prove they are eligible.
Supporters, by contrast, emphasized that SF 2203 includes a defined notice-and-response process. The bill’s structure relies on county auditors to contact flagged registrants, and it provides a window for voters to cancel their registration or prove citizenship, rather than immediately removing them from the rolls.
Beyond elections, the Senate’s package sought to embed SAVE checks across several other state-administered areas. Senate File 2187 requires the Iowa Department of Transportation to check SAVE when issuing or renewing driver’s licenses and state IDs, and it also applies SAVE checks when verifying immigration status for professional licensure applicants.
Senate File 2218 passed unanimously and requires all schools and the state’s education licensing board to verify that school staff are authorized to work in the U.S.
Two additional bills require SAVE verification for new state and school employees.
Taken together, the bills would expand the role of SAVE in daily interactions with state government, creating new verification steps that could increase the number of SAVE queries Iowa agencies submit. The measures would also require coordination among state entities that touch licensing, employment and identification, and they would tie routine administrative decisions to federal verification results.
The debate over the package reflected a recurring tension in state immigration-related policymaking: how to weigh administrative controls and data checks against the risks of false flags and added burdens on people who are eligible to vote, work, or receive credentials.
The bills also sit at the intersection of state authority and federal systems. While Iowa would not be rewriting federal immigration law, it would be requiring state agencies and offices to use a federal verification tool more broadly, including in contexts where the immediate question is not immigration enforcement but eligibility for a state-administered process.
All five bills now head to the Iowa House for consideration.
House action typically begins with committee review, where lawmakers can amend bill language before deciding whether to send measures to the full chamber. Any bill that clears committee can still face changes on the House floor before it can advance further.
Iowa Senate Approves Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements
The Iowa Senate passed legislation requiring the SAVE federal database to verify immigration status for voting, licensing, and employment. While Republicans advocate for these measures as a way to ensure election integrity and accurate record-keeping, Democrats raise alarms about the risk of false flags and administrative hurdles for eligible citizens. The package now faces review in the Iowa House.
