Supreme Court revives controversial US data system for citizenship checks

Image source, Getty ImagesByBernd Debusmann JrWhite House reporter Updated 11 minutes agoThe US Supreme Court has lifted restrictions on the Trump administration to use a controversial federal database that uses citizenship information and other sensitive data to identify voters suspected of being non-citizens.

• Publicado 25 de setembro de 2026, 17:11 BST.

Critics have questioned the reliability of the data, warning it could result in US citizens being wrongly removed from electoral rolls.

In June, a federal judge ruled that the system was illegal and violated the privacy rights of Americans.

Mas a maioria conservadora do tribunal supremo decidiu que a National Voter Registration Act proíbe a remoção em massa de listas de eleitores nas semanas que antecedem uma eleição, o que limita qualquer “potencial impacto” da decisão antes das eleições de meio de mandato.

The three liberal-leaning liberals on the Supreme Court dissented from the decision.

One of the dissenting Supreme Court justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed concern that this could mistakenly revoke the voting rights of eligible voters.

O dano causado ao sobrecarregar ou privar de direitos até mesmo alguns eleitores legais supera o dano inexistente que o governo experimenta quando é impedido de tomar uma ação que provavelmente não tem autoridade para realizar, ela escreveu.

The Department of Homeland Security programme, known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, allows officials to verify the eligibility of voters on their rolls.

The database was first created in 1986 to help officials verify the citizenship or immigration status of those applying for public benefits.

But the Trump administration last year expanded its search capabilities by allowing bulk searches using sensitive information from Social Security rolls.

In June, however, US District Judge Sparkle L Soonnan - a Biden-appointee - ruled that the revamped system shows that the federal government "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights" of US citizens "in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.

Um tribunal de apelações federal permitiu que sua decisão permanecesse em vigor, apenas para ser anulada pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal na sexta-feira.

O tribunal supremo decidiu que uma lei de 1996 permite que o DHS busque dados de cidadania e imigração de agências federais, e tem "uma obrigação de responder" a estados que buscam essa informação.

The use of the Save programme by individual states is voluntary.

The previous judge's order, the Supreme Court ruled, "prevents the federal government from using the programme it believes is best suited to the task.

Lawyers for the Trump administration have long argued that the system is lawful and necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting. A total of 27 states currently use the system to check voter citizenship.

Critics, however, have pointed to a number of cases of the system already having led to mistakes.

Por exemplo, autoridades do Condado de Travis, Texas, descobriram que, de quase 100 eleitores identificados como não cidadãos, pelo menos 10% deles — e potencialmente mais — eram cidadãos dos EUA, segundo relatos da mídia americana.

Since the state began checking its voter rolls with the Save system last year, only three non-citizen voters have been charged with illegally voting in Texas.

Desde que voltou à Casa Branca em janeiro do ano passado, a administração Trump tem buscado reformar o sistema eleitoral dos EUA, um processo que incluiu uma tentativa – rejeitada pela Suprema Corte – de controlar os votos por correio.

In 2024, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that 1,930 people with a "voter history" had been removed from electoral rolls out of a total of nearly 18 million registered voters.

Os números estão muito abaixo dos centenas de milhares de eleitores não cidadãos que Trump e o Department of Homeland Security já sugeriram anteriormente estarem na lista de eleitores.