Yellow Jacket InitiativeBy E. Lawrence Anderson, Yellow Jacket Initiative
On Friday, September 25, the Supreme Court stayed a District Court order that had shut down the modified version of SAVE, the federal system state and local officials use to check citizenship. The modified program is back in use while the government's appeal runs its course.
This is an interim ruling, not a decision on the merits. The Court said the government is likely to win. It did not say the government has won, and it set one major question aside for a different case. Those limits matter, so they come first.
What SAVE is, and what changed. According to the Court's opinion, SAVE was created in 1986 to help States verify eligibility for federally funded benefits, using immigration and naturalization records held by DHS (and occasionally the State Department and the Justice Department). In March 2025, Executive Order 14248 directed DHS to let state and local authorities verify the citizenship of registered voters, and directed the Social Security Administration to make its records available to DHS for that purpose.
The modified program differs from the original in two ways the Court identifies. It checks against additional records held by the Social Security Administration, including Social Security numbers. (The dissent notes those records cover natural-born citizens as well as naturalized ones.) And it allows bulk searches of many people at once. An agency uploads a name, date of birth, or full or partial Social Security number; SSA runs the search; and if the system cannot confirm citizenship, the agency must contact the person and ask for proof of citizenship to register or stay registered.
Who sued, and what the lower courts did. The League of Women Voters, its affiliates and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued. They argued the changes violated the Social Security Act's confidentiality provision, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The District Court for the District of Columbia agreed on all three and, in a June 22, 2026 order, vacated the modified program. A divided D.C. Circuit panel declined to pause that order, with Judge Katsas dissenting.
What the Court said. The unsigned opinion makes three points.
- Standing. At least one plaintiff member, a naturalized citizen registered in Louisiana, showed that her Social Security record does not reflect her citizenship. She likely would have been asked for more proof. That is enough for standing.
- The merits likely favor the government. The Court relies on 8 U.S.C. 1373, a 1996 immigration provision with two "notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law" clauses. They bar government entities and officials from restricting the sending of citizenship or immigration-status information to DHS. The Court reads those clauses to mean Congress "necessarily authorized DHS to request and receive that information," and concludes that section 1373 "likely supersedes restrictions on disclosure elsewhere in the Code," naming the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act. It adds that section 1373(c), which requires DHS to answer state and local verification requests, "appears to contemplate an information-sharing regime like the modified SAVE program."
- The equities favor a stay. The government has a duty under section 1373(c) to answer election officials' requests, and the order kept it from using the program it believes is best suited to that task.
What the Court did not decide. The plaintiffs pointed to the National Voter Registration Act's 90-day rule, which bars States from running programs to systematically remove ineligible voters in the 90 days before a federal election. For the November 3 election, that window opened August 5. The Court said the rule "limits the potential impact" of the stay, and noted that all agree individualized inquiries are allowed during that period. In its footnote 2, it said it will take up the scope of the 90-day rule in Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, No. 25-1017. That case is set for argument on Tuesday, December 8, after the election.
The dissent. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented. She wrote that the Court was "rendering questionable interim rulings about two statutory provisions it has never before interpreted," without full briefing or argument, and weighed only the government's claimed harms, not the harm to lawful voters whose Social Security citizenship records are out of date. Her dissent states, citing the government's application, that 27 States currently use SAVE for voter verification. That figure is the government's.
What is not established.
- How many States resumed bulk queries after September 25. We have seen only press reports and one state attorney general's release, so we do not give a number.
- How the D.C. Circuit will rule on the appeal. As of October 22, 2026, the Supreme Court's docket in No. 26A308 shows no action since the September 25 order, and No. 25-1017 remains set for December 8.
Why it matters. The finding here is textual. A majority of the Court has signaled that a 1996 "notwithstanding" clause likely overrides the privacy limits Congress wrote into the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, at least for citizenship information sent to DHS. If that reading holds on the merits, the question becomes how far beyond SAVE it reaches. That is what to watch as the D.C. Circuit appeal and any petition for certiorari move forward.
Source: Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters, No. 26A308, 609 U.S. ___ (Sept. 25, 2026) (per curiam), slip op. 1–7, and Jackson, J., dissenting: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a308_pok0.pdf. Docket checked October 22, 2026.
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