The Supreme Court has cleared the Department of Homeland Security to resume expanded use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, which lets states cross-check voter rolls against government records, including Social Security data, to confirm citizenship status.
The Court granted the administration’s request in a per curiam decision. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
According to SCOTUS Wire, the Court found the administration is likely to succeed in showing that a 1996 federal law authorizes DHS to obtain citizenship information from other federal agencies, notwithstanding privacy restrictions raised in the case.
The ruling reverses course from a September setback. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had denied, 2-1, the administration’s request to stay a lower-court ruling against the program, leaving the expanded SAVE system blocked while the government appealed U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s June decision against it.
With that appeal still pending, the administration will now be able to move forward with expanded SAVE checks ahead of the November 2026 midterms, alongside separate election security guidance issued by CISA.
