Judge Orders DHS To Restore SAVE Voter-Verification Features for States
The feds had disabled the tools in response to a different federal ruling.
A Florida federal judge directed the Department of Homeland Security to immediately restore key voter-verification and identity-checking features of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system Tuesday, ruling the agency violated a court-approved settlement by disabling them.
District Judge Kent Wetherell’s order requires DHS to reinstate the system’s Social Security number search capability and bulk-upload functionality, restoring tools several states use to verify voter eligibility and citizenship.
Mr. Wetherell — whom President Trump appointed to the federal bench in 2019 — granted an emergency motion Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana filed after DHS disabled the features June 23 in response to a separate federal court ruling in Washington, D.C.
The Pensacola-based judge concluded DHS breached a November 2025 settlement agreement requiring the agency to modernize the SAVE system by adding Social Security number searches and bulk verification requests. The deal resolved a lawsuit Florida filed in 2024 challenging the system’s limitations.
Before the settlement, states argued the SAVE system required a unique immigration identifier and could not search using Social Security or driver’s license numbers or similar identifiers. The agreement required DHS to integrate the system with the Social Security Administration for searches using full and last-four-digit Social Security numbers.
The court approved the settlement and retained jurisdiction for 20 years to enforce its terms.
Mr. Wetherell said DHS performed its obligations until June, when District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Sparkle Sooknanan vacated the modifications after concluding they violated the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, and DHS disabled the new features.
President Joe Biden named Ms. Sooknanan to the court in 2024.
The order notes Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been substituted as a defendant for former Secretary Kristi Noem under federal procedural rules.
Florida and the other plaintiff states argued the shutdown immediately impaired their ability to carry out state laws requiring citizenship verification.
Iowa said it could no longer verify the citizenship of professional license applicants. Florida and Ohio said the disabled features prevented them from effectively verifying the citizenship of registered voters.
Mr. Wetherell rejected DHS’s argument that another federal court’s ruling excused compliance with the settlement.
“Defendants are plainly in violation of the settlement agreement because it is undisputed that they disabled the bulk-upload and SSN-search features that the agreement expressly required the SAVE system to have,” the judge wrote. “The fact that Defendants disabled those features to comply with Judge Sooknanan’s order does not change the fact that they violated the agreement.”
Mr. Wetherell also rejected the government’s request to delay enforcement until appeals are resolved.
“The Court sees no reason to do so because there is no guarantee that a stay will be granted and Plaintiffs submitted unrebutted evidence showing that they are suffering real and concrete harm every day that passes without the disabled features of the SAVE system,” he wrote.
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