A class action lawsuit filed Sept. 30 in federal court provides a glimpse into what the Trump administration is doing with the voter data Indiana and other states have entered into the SAVE system and turned over to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The lawsuit asserts the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies have been pooling Americans’ sensitive personal data into comprehensive databases in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine. The defendants, the lawsuit says, are ignoring the guardrails erected by Congress and are building a “potentially dangerous tool” to surveil and investigate Americans.
Homeland Security, with help from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has “embarked on a months-long campaign to access, collect, and consolidate vast troves of personal data about millions of U.S. citizens and residents stored at multiple federal agencies,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants seek to unify data across the government to advance Trump administration priorities, including making it harder to vote, and ensuring that every contact between immigrants (regardless of their legal status) and government databases can be leveraged to support the administration’s agenda.”
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the class action is asking that the defendants be required to dismantle the “interagency national data bank” and be prohibited from pooling the data in one centralized system. Also, the lawsuit wants the defendants to publish notices in the Federal Register disclosing what data was put into the system and for what purpose.
Plaintiffs in the case are the League of Women Voters and its state chapters in Virginia and Louisiana, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and five unidentified individuals. In addition to Homeland Security, the other defendants are the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice along with all of their respective directors.
The lawsuit alleges the Trump administration has unlawfully merged personal data from across the federal government into at least two “Interagency Data Systems.”
One pool of data was created when Homeland Security transformed its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system by inputting records from the Social Security Administration.
Another pool was fashioned when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services built a “data lake” by combining records from the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Labor and several states’ voter registration databases. As a result, the lawsuit alleges, the USCIS data lake includes “extraordinarily sensitive” personal information.
“It includes millions of Americans’ (Social Security numbers), biometric data, tax information, wage and employment records, medical and disability records, detailed case files involving child abuse and more,” the lawsuit says.
Plaintiffs assert the defendants have violated the Privacy Act by failing to notify the public and Congress that the Interagency Data Systems were being crafted, and by not establishing any safeguards to protect the data or keeping accurate records of the information that has been gathered.
“Defendants are running roughshod over these privacy protections, hoping the speed, audacity, and opacity of their work will render all legal constraints meaningless,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants’ actions not only run contrary to these explicit prohibitions designed to protect the privacy of the American public, but also far exceed any limited lawful authority Defendants have.”
The case is League of Women Voters, et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, et al., 1:25-cv-03501.
Concerns about the new SAVE system
Indiana gained access to the “overhauled SAVE system” when Secretary of State Diego Morales entered into a memorandum of agreement with USCIS in July. At a news conference in September, Morales said his office had uploaded the state’s voter rolls using the last four digits of the registered voters’ Social Security numbers into the SAVE database and was hoping to confirm the citizenship status of about 14% of the registrants.
However, the lawsuit says the Social Security Administration citizenship data in the overhauled SAVE system is unreliable and incomplete. A key limitation is that the only citizenship data the administration possesses is a “snapshot of the individual’s citizenship status at the time of their interaction with the SSA.” The administration does not have any automated process for updating citizenship data, but rather relies on the individuals with Social Security numbers to inform the SSA of any change in their status.
The lawsuit points to a 2006 audit by SSA’s Office of Inspector General, which estimated the agency’s citizenship data misidentified about 3.3 million U.S. citizens as noncitizens. The error was attributed to people who became U.S. citizens after obtaining their Social Security numbers but did not update their records with the Social Security Administration. Also, the lawsuit says, the SSA “lacks complete citizenship data” for U.S.-born citizens born before 1981, which is the year the agency began consistently maintaining” citizenship information.
“If states rely on inaccurate SSA citizenship data to purge voters from rolls, millions of eligible voters could be wrongly disenfranchised, or face unwarranted burdens in exercising their right to vote,” the lawsuit warns, citing to media reports that “more than 33 million voters” have been run through the overhauled SAVE system.
Moreover, the lawsuit asserts that the memorandums of agreement that Indiana and other states signed make the overhauled SAVE system’s data-sharing “a two-way street.” While state agencies can now access the federal data through searchable online tools, Homeland Security and USCIS can use the information provided by the states “for any purpose permitted by law,” including prosecuting violations of federal administrative and criminal law.
In addition to using the new SAVE system, Morales also disclosed at the September news conference that his office had forwarded the state’s unrestricted voter rolls to the Department of Justice. Morales said his office had consulted with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office before turning over the voter registration information to the federal government.
According to the lawsuit, the Justice Department has requested voter registration lists from at least 30 states. Indiana was one of at least 10 that complied with the request. Federal officials confirmed that the Department of Justice is sharing state voter roll information with Department of Homeland Security to search for non-citizens.
The plaintiffs believe the state data is being mixed into the centralized data pools. “Defendants are incorporating, inputting, ingesting, or otherwise utilizing this state voter roll data in connection with the overhauled SAVE system and/or other (Homeland Security) Interagency Data Systems,” the lawsuit says.
Trading motions in court
On Oct. 7, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the overhaul and use of the SAVE system. The League of Women Voters and the other plaintiffs argue, “continued use of SAVE imminently imperils the right to vote of naturalized citizens and other Americans for whom (the Social Security Administration) maintains inaccurate citizenship data.”
The next day, the defendants filed a motion to stay all proceedings in the case because of the government shutdown. Noting that funding was cut off at the end of the day on Sept. 30, the Department of Justice told the federal court that its attorneys and most of the employees in the other defendant agencies are prohibited from working during the shutdown, even on a volunteer basis. Also, the defendants pointed out the federal courts had issued a standing order that delayed all deadlines in ongoing cases until five days after funding is restored.
However, the plaintiffs countered the standing order does not apply to motions for preliminary injunctions. Also, guidelines from the Office of Management and Budget and the Justice Department’s own contingency plan provide numerous circumstances in which defendants can continue working during a lapse in appropriations.
The federal court denied the defendants’ motion and gave them until Oct. 22 to respond to the motion for a preliminary injunction.
The plaintiffs are being represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation, Fair Elections Center, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
