Judge Blocks Trump Admin’s Database Of Americans’ Social Security Numbers And Citizenship Status

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of millions of Americans’ private information — including Social Security numbers and citizenship status — saying the administration has fed knowingly inaccurate data to states that are now “actively” and “haphazardly” purging purported non-citizens from voter rolls.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, the Biden-appointed judge said the Trump administration’s new system — an updated version of the so called “SAVE” database operated by the Department of Homeland Security — combines citizenship data with information from the Social Security Administration to create a clearinghouse that Congress has expressly prohibited.

Despite deep concerns about the accuracy of the records, Sooknanan said, the administration has shared the database with states.

“Since then, states have run their voter rolls through the modified SAVE system, and some of the Plaintiffs’ members have been wrongfully identified as non-citizens by SAVE, resulting in the cancellation of their voter registrations,” Sooknanan wrote.

The ruling halts a pillar of Trump’s efforts to overhaul American elections, many of which have been tied up by judgeswho say the administration is attempting to bulldoze through Trump’s preferred voting system without congressional approval — from attempting to coerce states to impose new voter ID rules to constraining mail-in balloting.

DHS and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The ruling immediately halts the implementation of the revised SAVE system, which has been a flashpoint in Trump’s effort to implement both a mass deportation agenda and overhaul of federal election laws.

Sooknanan’s ruling rests on what she concluded were violations of protections enshrined in the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, allowing states such as Texas and Louisiana to access the sensitive information and rely on it to purge voter rolls.

Sooknanan also said the reliance on inaccurate information to falsely label some people as non-citizens amounts to defamation — and that the Trump administration’s effort to downplay the consequences of an erroneous label “border on the absurd.” Non-citizen voting can imply criminality, she noted.

Plaintiffs who sued celebrated the decision, which is likely to be appealed quickly to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The data at the heart of this lawsuit was unlawfully consolidated in violation of privacy laws intended to protect sensitive personal information,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented some of the plaintiffs in the suit, along with the ACLU and others.