A federal appeals court refused to allow the federal government to revive its recently overhauled citizenship database after a lower court had ruled the changes violated privacy laws earlier this summer.
At the heart of the case is a tangled legal process over the government’s overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database. It was originally intended to track the status of immigrants in the country but was revamped after a March 2025 executive order aimed at rooting out potential noncitizen voters.
Expanding the database by adding personal data and new features prompted a lawsuit in D.C. over concerns that the Social Security number search feature constituted a privacy violation — amid broader concerns that the database could have inaccuracies that would lead to American citizens being erroneously flagged as ineligible to vote. But it also prompted four states to file a separate lawsuit, in which another federal judge in Florida ruled the government had to reinstate those very features for their use.