Arya News Agency -WASHINGTON – A divided U.S. federal appeals court has dealt a significant legal setback to the Trump administration, rejecting its bid to lift a court-ordered freeze on the use of a Department of Homeland Security immigration database for verifying citizenship records in state voter rolls—a ruling that carries major implications for the upcoming midterm elections.
In a 2–1 decision handed down Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a lower court's injunction barring the government from utilizing the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, a federal database originally designed to determine immigration status for benefits eligibility, as a tool for purging or challenging voter registrations ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, in which Republicans are fighting to preserve their slender majorities in both chambers of Congress.
The majority opinion, authored by Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and joined by Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins—both appointees of former President Barack Obama—affirmed that the use of the SAVE database for electoral purposes violates the Social Security Act, as it entails the disclosure of sensitive personal information belonging to millions of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
The appellate panel further highlighted substantial concerns regarding the reliability of citizenship data contained in the system, noting that inaccuracies could force eligible American voters to prove their nationality in order to remain on registration lists—and in some cases, could result in wrongful disenfranchisement through improper voter roll cancellations.
Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, dissented from the majority ruling, arguing in favor of the administration's position.
The decision comes amid a broader legal battle over voting access and election integrity, following a July order by a Florida-based federal judge that had directed DHS to resume granting four Republican-led states access to the database—a ruling that had temporarily superseded an earlier nationwide halt imposed by another judge. Friday's appellate decision effectively reinstates the nationwide restriction, at least for the duration of the current electoral cycle.
Civil rights advocates and voting rights organizations have welcomed the ruling as a critical safeguard against discriminatory voter suppression, while administration officials have expressed disappointment, vowing to explore further legal avenues to ensure what they describe as the integrity of federal elections. The case is widely seen as part of a larger partisan tug-of-war over voting laws, with Democrats accusing the administration of using immigration data to systematically target minority and naturalized citizens, and Republicans defending the measure as a necessary check against non-citizen voting—a phenomenon for which evidence remains scarce.