Skip to content
STATEOF WATCH
← case tracker

Supreme Court of the United States

Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters

Stay application over the expanded SAVE voter-verification program.

Docket

No. 26A308

D.C. Cir. Nos. 26-5243 & 26-5301

Judge
Application to Chief Justice Roberts
Where it stands
Stay granted Sept 25, 2026, Justices Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan dissenting. Judge Sooknanan's June 22 order is on hold through the D.C. Circuit appeal and any petition for certiorari.

Next · not settled

D.C. Circuit decision on the appeal (No. 26-5243)

No argument date was scheduled as of Oct. 2, 2026. The parties filed a proposed briefing schedule that day; the source reviewed does not show whether the court adopted it.

Pending

  • Consolidated D.C. Circuit appeals, Nos. 26-5243 and 26-5301.

Docket timeline

  1. 2026-06-22

    Judge Sooknanan vacates the modified SAVE system and the 2025 DHS and SSA notices; DHS says it immediately disables the modified system.

  2. 2026-07-07

    Northern District of Florida orders DHS to restore bulk-upload and SSN-search access for Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio; DHS later tells the Supreme Court it restored affected features for those states while keeping them disabled elsewhere.

  3. 2026-09-04

    Divided D.C. Circuit panel denies a stay and expedites the consolidated appeals.

  4. 2026-09-08

    Solicitor General applies for a stay.

  5. 2026-09-15

    Respondents and Texas respond.

  6. 2026-09-16

    DHS reply filed.

  7. 2026-09-25

    Supreme Court grants the stay (per curiam); Justice Jackson dissents, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.

  8. 2026-10-02

    USCIS says SAVE user agencies can again initiate cases with full or partial Social Security numbers and use bulk upload. The parties separately propose a merits-briefing schedule; no oral argument is yet scheduled.

as of 2026-10-02

Documents

Entries in the record

Jun 22 – Sept 25, 2026verifiedSupreme Court stays order blocking expanded SAVE voter checksThe Supreme Court temporarily put a lower-court order on hold, legally clearing DHS to use its expanded SAVE voter-citizenship system while an appeal continues. USCIS said on Oct. 2 that SAVE user agencies can again create cases with full or partial Social Security numbers and use the bulk-upload tool, confirming nationwide restoration of the disputed functions.

On Sept. 25, 2026, the Supreme Court stayed Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's June 22 order setting aside the modified SAVE program in Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters, No. 26A308. The stay lasts through the D.C. Circuit appeal and any timely Supreme Court review. It changes what DHS is legally permitted to do while the case continues; it is not a final decision on the program's lawfulness.

USCIS launched the modified system by May 22, 2025. It added records for U.S.-born citizens, access to Social Security Administration records including Social Security numbers, and a file-upload process that creates individual SAVE cases for multiple people. Sooknanan later held that the changes violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act and administrative law. A divided D.C. Circuit panel denied a stay on Sept. 4 before the Supreme Court intervened.

In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority said the challengers likely have standing but that "their claims likely lack merit." It read 8 U.S.C. § 1373 as likely authorizing DHS to obtain citizenship information despite restrictions elsewhere in federal law, and cited the government's interest in "the proper administration of the midterm elections." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented. She objected that the Court acted "without full briefing or oral argument" while "disregarding the harms that the modified SAVE system has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters."

The litigation had already produced conflicting operational orders. The government said it disabled modified SAVE nationwide after Sooknanan's ruling. Judge T. Kent Wetherell II then ordered DHS to restore bulk-upload and Social Security-number searches for Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio under a November 2025 settlement. In its Sept. 8 application, the government said it had restored the affected features for those four states while keeping them disabled for everyone else.

A USCIS notice last reviewed or updated Oct. 2 resolved the remaining operational question. It says SAVE user agencies "can once again create SAVE cases using a full or partial Social Security number and the SAVE bulk upload tool." USCIS attributes the restoration to the Supreme Court's Sept. 25 stay. The appeal remains pending, and the stay is not a final ruling on whether the modified system is lawful.

How we know: Supreme Court opinion, government stay application, lower-court record, DHS program documents, Oct. 2 appellate filing and USCIS's Oct. 2 restoration notice read directly. The stay permits nationwide use while the appeal continues, but it is not a final ruling on the merits. USCIS confirms that SAVE user agencies can again create cases with full or partial Social Security numbers and use bulk upload.

Full record →checked v3.32

“disregarding the harms that the modified SAVE system has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters”
Justice Jackson, dissenting, DHS v. League of Women Voters (Sept. 25, 2026)

Source chain

  1. 01DHS v. League of Women Voters, No. 26A308, per curiam opinion and Jackson, J., dissenting (U.S. Sept. 25, 2026)primarydocket 26A308document (PDF)
  2. 02Supreme Court docket, No. 26A308primarydocket 26A308
  3. 03DHS v. League of Women Voters, application for stay (U.S. Sept. 8, 2026)primarydocket 26A308document (PDF)
  4. 04League of Women Voters v. DHS, D.D.C. docket and appeal record package (Doc. 114)primarydocket 1:25-cv-03501-SLSdocument (PDF)
  5. 05USCIS, USCIS Deploys Common Sense Tools to Verify Voters (May 22, 2025)primarydocument (PDF)
  6. 06DHS/USCIS Privacy Impact Assessment for SAVE (Oct. 31, 2025)primarydocument (PDF)
  7. 07League of Women Voters v. DHS, joint motion to set briefing schedule (D.C. Cir. Oct. 2, 2026)primarydocket 26-5243 & 26-5301document (PDF)
  8. 08USCIS, SAVE Functionality Restored (last reviewed/updated Oct. 2, 2026)primary
  9. 09SCOTUSblog, Sept. 25, 2026
  10. 10Democracy Docket, July 7, 2026
  11. 11Washington Timeslink being reconstructed
  12. 12SANlink being reconstructed
Since Apr 2025verifiedAt least 25 states sent about 67 million voter registrations through SAVEAt least 25 states used the expanded SAVE system beginning in April 2025. USCIS reported 60 million registration checks in one year, and North Carolina later added 7.4 million more. The combined figure counts records sent through the system, not people found to be noncitizens or otherwise ineligible.

The Associated Press reported that at least 25 states had used expanded SAVE to check their voter rolls since April 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said states ran 60 million registration checks in one year; that figure did not include another 7.4 million registrations North Carolina later sent through the system, bringing the total to at least 67.4 million.

A SAVE match is not a final determination that someone is ineligible to vote. State officials must investigate the result, and AP documented eligible voters who were mistakenly flagged. The figure therefore measures registration records processed through SAVE, not confirmed noncitizens or unique people removed from voter rolls.

How we know: Associated Press report read directly Oct. 3, 2026. Its 67.4 million total combines 60 million USCIS-reported checks with 7.4 million additional North Carolina records. A Sept. 8 government filing separately reported more than 65 million voters verified across 26 states and 59.7 million requests across 27 participating states; those figures use different measures and cutoffs and are not interchangeable.

Full record →carried forward