Judge Criticized for Blocking Trump Admin from Using Database to Check Citizenship Status

A federal judge was criticized after she blocked the Trump administration from using a federal database to check the citizenship status of illegal aliens and remove them from voter rolls.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, issued a ruling preventing the Trump administration from “using a streamlined version” of the federal government’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, Breitbart News’s John Binder reported.

Breitbart News also reported:

The update to SAVE allowed states to more quickly verify that only American citizens are voting in federal elections by no longer requiring that all nine digits of a voter registrant’s Social Security Number have to be entered to verify eligibility.

“This case implicates two fundamental rights that protect Americans from government overreach: the right to privacy and the right to vote,” Sooknanan, an immigrant from Trinida and Tobago, wrote.

In response to Sooknanan’s ruling, several people took to social media to state that Sooknanan was “not protecting voters,” but rather “weakening election integrity” with her decision.

“Judge Sparkle decrees that America belongs to any random alien on planet earth, just like our founders intended,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote in a post on X.

“Imagine telling an American from the 1960’s that this ruling would occur and that it would be because of someone called Sparkle Sooknanan,” another person wrote.

“SCOTUS needs to rein in these activist judges that are overreaching NOW!!!!!!” another user wrote in a post.

“Judge Sparkle Sooknanan worries about citizens being removed from voter rolls,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote in a post. “But instead of requiring safeguards or heightened review, she shut down the expanded SAVE database used by states to check their rolls for noncitizens.”

“That’s not protecting voters,” Lee added. “It’s weakening election integrity. Time to appeal this ruling (or perhaps seek an extraordinary writ of mandamus)—and pass the SAVE America Act.”