The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act now dubbed the SAVE America Act narrowly passed the U.S. House last week, with all Republicans and one Democrat backing the bill. Its approval came about 10 months after House Republicans last passed the SAVE Act. The measure, which would transform voter registration and voting across the country, faces persistent hurdles in the GOP-led Senate due to Democratic disapproval and the 60-vote threshold to clear the legislative filibuster.
The Trump administration has since poured billions of dollars into immigration enforcement, and in March, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that states have "access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered." In May, DHS began encouraging states to check their voter rolls against immigration data with the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). SAVE now has access to data from across the federal government, not just on immigrants but on citizens as well.