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By Hannah Parry
Associate News Editor
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A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's administration from building a database of millions of Americans’ personal and sensitive data.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was appointed under former President Joe Biden, wrote in her ruling that the Trump administration has "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."
The suit was filed after the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration attempted to transform the DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system into a national citizenship database. Activist groups argued that the Social Security data within that system was unreliable and was being used by some states to purge voter rolls and open criminal investigations into lawful voters.
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Marcia Johnson, the chief of activation and justice for the League of Women Voters, which brought the lawsuit against the federal government alongside the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), called the decision "a resounding victory for voters."
“Efforts to create a federal voter database to facilitate voter purges threaten the fundamental right at the heart of our democracy," she said.
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According to Sooknanan's 75-page ruling, several federal agencies had joined forces in the past year to create the centralized federal database containing U.S. citizens' Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other sensitive data.
"The agencies were scrambling to comply with an Executive Order aimed at reshaping federal elections, which directed them to create a system for mass voter verification," she wrote. 'So they haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable. Since then, states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information."
EPIC Deputy Director and Director of Enforcement John Davisson said after the ruling that it "underscores that government agencies must follow the law, defend privacy, and remain accountable to the public they serve."
"Today's decision is a victory for us all. By halting the illegal consolidation of sensitive personal data across federal agencies, the court has safeguarded not only our privacy rights but also the bedrock of our democracy: the right to vote,” Davisson said.
What Is the SAVE Database?
The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program is a federal system managed by DHS. Historically, it was designed to allow state and federal agencies to verify the immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits.
However, under an executive order issued by the Trump administration, the database was radically expanded into an interagency "data lake" linking DHS records with the Social Security Administration. This expansion enabled the database to:
- Search individuals using Social Security numbers.
- Aggregate massive pools of sensitive personal information.
- Serve as a centralized "citizenship lookup tool" accessible to state election officials to verify voter eligibility and purge registration rolls.
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Who Is District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan?
Sooknanan presides over the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She took office in January 2025.
Her appointment was notable for several reasons. She is one of the few federal judges born in Trinidad and Tobago, and she became the first Trinidad-born woman to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Her nomination received support from many members of the legal community, including former Supreme Court law clerks from across the ideological spectrum.
How Did the Judge Rule?
In her decision issued on June 22, Sooknanan sided with the plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters and EPIC, and granted an injunction to halt the bulk data-pooling system.
Sooknanan ruled that the Trump administration implemented the drastic changes "in secret," violating statutory requirements. Specifically, the court found that the government failed to provide proper public notice, offer comment windows, or thoroughly assess privacy risks as mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Privacy Act of 1974.
When Are the 2026 United States Midterm Elections?
The 2026 United States midterm elections are scheduled for November 3, 2026. With control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate at stake, the ruling removes a key mechanism that the administration and its allies could have used to maintain the voter rolls widely leading up to November.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant and Sam Wilson.
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