A federal tool to catch unauthorized immigrants is caught in a judicial tug-of-war
A federal court forced the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to shutter a database used to verify immigration status. In doing so, it sparked a lawsuit from politically aligned states that relied on the information to root out unauthorized immigrants there.
Two separate lawsuits were filed against DHS over its handling of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, tool. In Florida, the attorney general originally sued the Biden administration in 2024 for allegedly impeding states’ ability to use the tool to verify a person’s legal status. In D.C., the League of Women Voters and privacy rights groups sued DHS this past September, alleging updates following President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order violated privacy and administrative laws.
It has created a conflict for DHS as the department’s lawyers told Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier it had to abide by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s June 22 ruling.
Uthmeier said in a June 30 court filing that rolling back changes meant the department was breaking its deal with the states.
“Defendants disabled the bulk upload function in SAVE,” Uthmeier wrote. “Defendants also disabled the ability for States to search the database with Social Security Numbers or last-four-digit Social Security Numbers.”
Over in the D.C. federal court, Sooknanan criticized the federal government on June 22 for upgrades that “knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens.”
The judge’s order essentially required DHS to disable the parts of the SAVE system that the allied states were relying on for local immigration enforcement.
DHS enters settlement agreement with Uthmeier
The settlement agreement in Uthmeier’s case resolved claims he and three other attorneys general raised that DHS, under former President Joe Biden, thwarted states’ ability to check a person’s citizenship status upon registering to vote.
Indiana, Iowa and Ohio joined Florida’s lawsuit in an amended November complaint that asserted states couldn’t enforce their voting laws barring non-citizens from casting ballots in elections.
“As part of preventing voter fraud, including non-citizen voting, the Plaintiffs — the States of Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana, as well as certain of their officials responsible for election integrity — have an obligation to maintain accurate and current voter registration records,” according to the new complaint.
One measure they used for enforcement was the SAVE tool. Despite its history of issuing flawed reports, officials still sought to use the program and said that government inaction “frustrated” the states’ ability to verify voter eligibility.
The attorneys reached a settlement in December — days after amending the complaint — with DHS that at minimum, forced the department to make the tool free for government agencies, retain search with full and last-four-digit Social Security Numbers, allow bulk uploads, supplement data on each verification and obtain a person’s status within 48 hours.
Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, a Trump appointee, signed off on the order and dismissed the case with prejudice. He didn’t address the civil lawsuit filed in D.C.’s federal court, nor did Uthmeier.
Uthmeier sought enforcement of the agreement after he said DHS disabled bulk uploads and access to Social Security Number searches. DHS hasn’t yet responded to a court order explaining why they aren’t violating the December agreement.
Plaintiffs in the D.C. lawsuit alerted Wetherell about their summary judgment. They wrote that if the agreement was enforced, it would reimpose injuries they raised in their lawsuit. Wetherrell gave DHS until 5 p.m. Central Time on July 2 to respond.
Federal judge rescinds SAVE changes
A coalition of voting and privacy rights groups sued DHS in September, arguing that changes made to the SAVE tool violated federal privacy laws and failed to adhere to federal rulemaking procedures.
Democracy Forward, a left-leaning litigation group, represented the groups and said in a Sept. 30 release that changes placed previously anonymized personal information like Social Security Numbers, tax data, medical records, biometrics and other data into a new centralized system.
The civil lawsuit was filed in the D.C. federal court.
The group claimed some states were using the SAVE program to prosecute people, target naturalized citizens and purge voters from voter rolls. They noted Congress has consistently disallowed the creation of a national database for more than 50 years.
They requested that the court block the operation and creation of centralized databases, force deletion of “unlawfully collected data,” and uphold Privacy Act protections.
Sooknanan issued a summary judgment on June 22 and wrote that the remedy DHS received in the Florida federal court wasn’t sought in time. She noted that comity considerations need to be asserted early in litigation and not at a summary judgment request.
“The Court doubts that judicial administration and efficiency warrant dismissing this case for comity reasons at this late stage of proceedings—where all Parties have briefed the merits and the Court is ready to enter final relief,” she wrote.
Despite the settlement agreement, Sooknanan wrote that DHS didn’t enter a consent decree that effectively barred the relief the coalition sought in the lawsuit. Homeland Security’s lawyers filed an appeal with the federal D.C. Court of Appeals, according to court records.
Round out your reading
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
