Now, a lawsuit seeks to obtain documents that support – or deny – the Trump administration's figures, based on information shared by the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office.
“The Trump-Vance administration cannot claim to protect the election while hiding the facts from the public,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. "Americans deserve evidence, not rhetoric. The government is exercising unprecedented and unconstitutional authority over election administration, while refusing to disclose the policies, data and communications that underpin these actions."
In 2025, the immigration agency expanded the capabilities of the Systematic Verification of Aliens for Obtaining Benefits (SAVE) system, after President Trump's Executive Order 14399 to review electoral rolls, this led to modifying the system to allow the massive upload of data and including information from the Social Security Administration and the Department of State.
“There is ample evidence that many people identified by SAVE as allegedly non-citizens are, in fact, citizens,” says the lawsuit, which accuses the Trump administration of “illegally” obtaining the data of voters who are part of the aforementioned registry, something that even legislators have pointed out.
The plaintiffs seek information that the Department of Justice uses from the Systematic Alien Verification for Benefits (SAVE) program for voter registration and voter registry maintenance.
Agreements related to absentee and mail-in ballot data sets are also requested, as well as internal planning documents on the use of immigration databases to review voter rolls.
"In a democracy, public confidence in our elections depends on transparency, accountability and respect for the rule of law. Our team is honored to file this lawsuit to reveal to the American people what the administration is hiding," Perryman added.
Democracy Forward also questions USCIS's refusal to expedite public information requests, even though the midterm elections are underway.
The lawsuit before the District Court of Maryland seeks to order USCIS to expeditiously process transparency requests and turn over the requested records, “so that the public can understand the actions of the federal government before the 2026 elections.”
