The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly formalized sweeping changes to a federal immigration database Friday, turning it into a national “voter verification” tool that appears to sidestep federal privacy protections and will make it easier to remove large numbers of voters from the rolls.
The department cited President Donald Trump’s anti-voting executive orders as the spur for the move.
A Systems of Records Notice (SORN), published by DHS in the Federal Register in its final form Friday, redefines how the department and state officials can use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database — a program originally created to check the immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits.
The change adds voter registration and verification to SAVE’s official purpose, vastly expanding who and what data can be entered and searched. It allows DHS to share the data with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), which under Trump has embarked on a sweeping effort to pressure states to tighten voting rules and remove voters from the rolls.
And for the first time, DHS explicitly adds natural-born U.S. citizens to the system’s scope, allowing verification through Social Security numbers, passports and, soon, driver’s licenses.
The SORN comes months after the Trump administration expanded SAVE, even though federal law requires public notice in advance of such significant changes. The filing neglects to mention that SAVE was already modified and is currently being used by states to purge voter rolls….