Groups Join AGs in Denouncing DHS Changes to SAVE System
The Department of Homeland Security has unlawfully made changes to a system containing the personal information of citizens and non-citizens that allows government agencies to check immigration status and enable voter roll purges, a coalition of advocacy groups said this week.
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The coalition, in comments this week to DHS, called on the agency to withdraw its System of Records Notice (SORN), which was published Oct. 31 and announced changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE). The SAVE program should be restored to its original function, the coalition also said.
The coalition's criticism came as a separate group of 18 Democratic attorneys general opposed the Trump administration’s expansion of the SAVE program to include the data of U.S.-born citizens, calling it “ill-advised” and a “massive privacy overreach,” in addition to a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 (see 2512010055).
“Over the past seven months, DHS has effected radical changes to SAVE in defiance of long-established safeguards on how the system can be used, what types of records it incorporates, and whose information can be accessed,” the coalition's comments said. “The system -- newly linked to sensitive Social Security Administration (SSA) records -- can now be queried in bulk by states looking to kick voters off of their rolls.”
Tim Harper, senior policy analyst of elections and democracy for the Center for Democracy & Technology, one of the groups in the coalition, said the “administration claims it needs this data to look for extremely rare instances of non-citizen voting by checking voter files against the DHS SAVE system ... But SAVE was never designed to verify citizenship, and relies on outdated and inaccurate information that risks false matches and wrongful disenfranchisement.”
Additionally, despite requirements to inform and gain feedback from the public before implementing changes to SAVE, DHS failed to do so, the comments said. The SORN, notifying the public of the changes, was only published at the end of October, though changes began as early as May, the comments added.
Further, the coalition argued that the SORN was only published after EPIC and a coalition of plaintiffs -- including the League of Women Voters -- filed a lawsuit against DHS and SSA, challenging the federal administration’s creation of massive government databases that contain consolidated sensitive personal information of Americans. The class-action lawsuit in case 1:25-cv-03501 alleges the agency’s actions are a violation of the separation of powers in addition to the Privacy Act (see 2509300044).
“The sensitive personal information of tens of millions cannot be so casually abused under federal law: the Privacy Act demands more of federal agencies,” the EPIC-led coalition said. Moreover, the “sweeping violations of privacy and voting rights” committed by DHS isn't legitimized by the SORN.
“Protecting both the right to vote and the privacy of voter data is essential to our democracy,” Harper said. “DHS should reverse its overhaul of the SAVE program. Government power should not be misused at the expense of Americans’ privacy and voting rights.”