On Friday, May 23, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated the “Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements” (SAVE) program, allowing states to use the system to verify voter identities. Since April 1, the immigration agency has eliminated all fees for state, local, tribal, and territorial government agencies to use the SAVE service.
According to the latest announcement on Friday, the immigration agency is encouraging all states and local governments to register to use the SAVE system for verifying legitimate voter qualifications. The update to the SAVE program aims to ensure efficient verification of immigrant and U.S. citizen identities nationwide through a single reliable source.
By inputting a social security number, state and local authorities can verify the U.S. citizenship of voters and prevent foreign individuals from voting in U.S. elections. A spokesperson for the immigration agency, Matthew Tragesser, stated in a release, “For years, states have been calling for tools to help identify foreigners and prevent them from hijacking our elections… The agency is taking swift action to combat voter fraud.”
“We look forward to making further progress soon and will continue to work towards restoring public trust in American elections,” the statement added. The immigration agency highlighted that this new collaboration with the Social Security Administration will allow the use of social security numbers instead of Department of Homeland Security ID numbers for verifying citizenship or immigration status, as many state and local agencies do not collect the latter.
Moreover, agencies can now make multiple queries at once, improving efficiency. This development follows shortly after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), USCIS, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced enhancements to SAVE aimed at removing barriers to ensuring the security of the national electoral process by combating voter fraud.
The agency stated that they will continue to enhance and expand the functionalities of the SAVE program. Currently, states and local governments can access federal databases through the SAVE system to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals on voter rolls and registered to vote, in support of Executive Order 14248 for maintaining and protecting the integrity of American elections.
In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring the establishment of a verification system to confirm the identities of foreign individuals applying for various benefits. The following year, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service established the SAVE program, which was transferred to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003, with USCIS responsible for its management.
SAVE was previously only available to welfare-granting agencies to help verify the immigration status information of applicants to determine their eligibility, while decisions on approving applicants remained with the respective agencies. The operation of SAVE involves a government agency asking an individual applying for benefits in the U.S. to present immigration status documents, such as Arrival/Departure records (Form I-94), Permanent Resident Cards (Form I-551), Employment Authorization Documents (Form I-766), or foreign passports and visas.
If the agency is part of the SAVE program, it will fill out Form G-845 with the information from the applicant’s immigration status documents and input it into the SAVE verification system. SAVE then compares the applicant’s immigration status information with the records in the DHS database and electronically responds to the agency.
For instance, the Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California, Connecticut, and New York have joined the SAVE system. When a foreign individual applies for a driver’s license in New York and provides immigration status documents, the DMV inputs the information into the SAVE system to verify the correctness of the immigration status information.