I am writing to express my profound concern regarding the recent actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in expanding its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to now include millions of U.S. citizens. This alarming development compromises the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens without their knowledge or consent.
According to a letter from the Fair Elections Center, made public on December 1, 2025, DHS has covertly transformed SAVE from a system originally designed to vet immigrant benefit applications into a sweeping national citizenship verification mechanism. This dramatic alteration allows state election officials to screen U.S. citizens alongside immigrants. Over 46 million voter verification queries have already been submitted, with 26 states actively participating in this unprecedented invasion of privacy.
Lack of Transparency and Consent
DHS has openly admitted that it failed to provide the required 30-day public notice before implementing these changes, violating the Privacy Act. The system is fundamentally flawed; it now integrates Social Security Number (SSN) queries and is poised to incorporate additional databases, further entrenching a centralized identification surveillance infrastructure. This systemic overreach occurs without public knowledge or informed consent from the citizens whose data is being exploited.
Dangerously Inaccurate Data
The reliability of the data being used is equally concerning. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has cautioned that its citizenship data may become outdated and inaccurate over time. Misidentifications have already led to wrongful purging of eligible voters, as evidenced in multiple states such as Texas and Louisiana. Reports indicate that approximately 25% of flagged individuals were U.S. citizens incorrectly identified as noncitizens. The use of partial SSN queries only compounds these inaccuracies, posing high risks for false matches and unjust disenfranchisement.
Burden of Proof and Rationale for Action
DHS's actions create a daunting burden of proof for many Americans. An estimated 21.3 million voting-age citizens may struggle to produce documentation proving their citizenship, disproportionately affecting women and young voters. This system effectively requires citizens to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic hurdles to prove their legal status.
The justification provided by DHS—that this initiative is necessary to prevent noncitizen voting—is both misleading and disproven. Extensive audits have consistently revealed that reports of voter fraud are grossly exaggerated. As evidenced by data from the Heritage Foundation, only 99 cases of suspected noncitizen voting have been identified since 2000. This misuse of data to justify invasive monitoring is unacceptable.
Legal Violations and Constitutional Concerns
The Fair Elections Center’s letter highlights several critical violations of law and constitutional authority. The DHS lacks the statutory and constitutional authority to collect voter lists and conduct massive data sharing for electoral purposes. Election qualifications are constitutionally reserved for Congress and the states, not the executive branch.
This troubling transformation of DHS powers represents not only a breach of trust but also a significant threat to our democratic processes. I urge you to take immediate action against this blatant overreach.
Please consider supporting legislation that calls for:
1. A moratorium on the use of the SAVE system for citizen screening until its implications can be thoroughly reviewed and regulated.
2. Stronger guidelines to protect citizens’ privacy rights in relation to government database usage.
3. Greater transparency in any future expansions of governmental data collection practices.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter. I look forward to your swift response.
Thanks, Pablo, but I can take no credit. I am merely using your well thought out and researched article/s as ammunition in the fight against fascism. I hope you don't mind.
REALLY nicely done! I was having trouble tracking this article. MIgrant Insider is great, so I assume it's just a reasoning deficiency on my part, but I understood enough that I'd like to contact my representatives. Came back to try to figure out what I'd say and... here you are! Thanks for putting it up!
I am an aspiring writer and interested in your process. I'm impressed with how you identified some salient points and organized them into a flow. I know I have to keep writing to get better, but if you had any thoughts I'd be interested in how/if you learned to do this?
I am trying to learn how to write mostly by commenting on other Substack posts for now. I get too bogged down in my research process to clear it up enough to write my own posts for now. I am really impressed with your "Letter to Reps" concept in the Replies to a post!
I've never seen that and it is very generous and effective!!!
Thanks for your kind reply, Patrick. I'm afraid I'm not a writer at all, and have been relying on AI to help me condense important articles into a format that will fit online government contact forms without losing salient points. I hope that's not too disappointing!
Not disappointing at all. AI tools are incredibly powerful. The news industry has been slow to adopt them but their utility for a writer of any sort is difficult to ignore. Foolish to ignore. IMO
As I looked at your post I could imagine you entering the whole article and asking Chat GTP to format it into the contact form.
I do want to do my articles the old fashioned way and I use ChatGTP for prompts and research, but I do struggle to get things written. I got turned onto Indivisible very early in T***p’s first term and their whole deal was contacting your Congress members on an issue and encouraging others to do the same thing. The way you are using AI is genius for that and I applaud you and I’m going to start doing the same thing!!! Thanks for replying!
The ChatGPT tool on the Big Beautiful Bill Act is really interesting but my hope is that they at some point offer the same tool for the entire congressional records since the first Congress. That to me would be some Mount Everest utility from the AI world on my beat.
Thanks, I'm glad if it will be useful to you. There are so many bad things going on right now......for me it would be impossible to digest and personally write letters or call scripts for them all. I need to use the bulk of my time trying to find and understand the most personally important attacks on our democracy and try to build the fight against those. Mostly I feel useless.
Truth be told, I'm not much of a writer ... but when I was a pretty good prose stylist, it was because I read a lot of really great writing, which is, of course, totally subjective. But when I'd read something great when I was younger, I felt competitive with the writer who wrote it, even if they were long dead. I was like, I'm gonna beat 'em! Nowadays instead of writing as well as I can, I tend to write as fast as I can, then clean up my copy with an editor. Truth be told, I don't write the way I'd like to (as in, way more counter-culture-y), because I don't think there's a market for it. Maybe that'll change as I get more established in writing, as opposed to just breaking news reporting, which is my favorite.
Closely listening to the lyrics of Bob Dylan's early albums tended to make me a better writer, too. "It's Alright, Ma" "When I Paint My Masterpiece" "Tangled. Up in Blue" "Hard Rain" ... omg Hard Rain is a great musical preamble to getting real wordy on a page.
LETTER TO YOUR REPS BASED ON THIS ARTICLE:
I am writing to express my profound concern regarding the recent actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in expanding its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to now include millions of U.S. citizens. This alarming development compromises the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens without their knowledge or consent.
According to a letter from the Fair Elections Center, made public on December 1, 2025, DHS has covertly transformed SAVE from a system originally designed to vet immigrant benefit applications into a sweeping national citizenship verification mechanism. This dramatic alteration allows state election officials to screen U.S. citizens alongside immigrants. Over 46 million voter verification queries have already been submitted, with 26 states actively participating in this unprecedented invasion of privacy.
Lack of Transparency and Consent
DHS has openly admitted that it failed to provide the required 30-day public notice before implementing these changes, violating the Privacy Act. The system is fundamentally flawed; it now integrates Social Security Number (SSN) queries and is poised to incorporate additional databases, further entrenching a centralized identification surveillance infrastructure. This systemic overreach occurs without public knowledge or informed consent from the citizens whose data is being exploited.
Dangerously Inaccurate Data
The reliability of the data being used is equally concerning. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has cautioned that its citizenship data may become outdated and inaccurate over time. Misidentifications have already led to wrongful purging of eligible voters, as evidenced in multiple states such as Texas and Louisiana. Reports indicate that approximately 25% of flagged individuals were U.S. citizens incorrectly identified as noncitizens. The use of partial SSN queries only compounds these inaccuracies, posing high risks for false matches and unjust disenfranchisement.
Burden of Proof and Rationale for Action
DHS's actions create a daunting burden of proof for many Americans. An estimated 21.3 million voting-age citizens may struggle to produce documentation proving their citizenship, disproportionately affecting women and young voters. This system effectively requires citizens to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucratic hurdles to prove their legal status.
The justification provided by DHS—that this initiative is necessary to prevent noncitizen voting—is both misleading and disproven. Extensive audits have consistently revealed that reports of voter fraud are grossly exaggerated. As evidenced by data from the Heritage Foundation, only 99 cases of suspected noncitizen voting have been identified since 2000. This misuse of data to justify invasive monitoring is unacceptable.
Legal Violations and Constitutional Concerns
The Fair Elections Center’s letter highlights several critical violations of law and constitutional authority. The DHS lacks the statutory and constitutional authority to collect voter lists and conduct massive data sharing for electoral purposes. Election qualifications are constitutionally reserved for Congress and the states, not the executive branch.
This troubling transformation of DHS powers represents not only a breach of trust but also a significant threat to our democratic processes. I urge you to take immediate action against this blatant overreach.
Please consider supporting legislation that calls for:
1. A moratorium on the use of the SAVE system for citizen screening until its implications can be thoroughly reviewed and regulated.
2. Stronger guidelines to protect citizens’ privacy rights in relation to government database usage.
3. Greater transparency in any future expansions of governmental data collection practices.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter. I look forward to your swift response.
Great letter, Joonbug!
Thanks, Pablo, but I can take no credit. I am merely using your well thought out and researched article/s as ammunition in the fight against fascism. I hope you don't mind.
REALLY nicely done! I was having trouble tracking this article. MIgrant Insider is great, so I assume it's just a reasoning deficiency on my part, but I understood enough that I'd like to contact my representatives. Came back to try to figure out what I'd say and... here you are! Thanks for putting it up!
You are very welcome. Glad if I can help.
I am an aspiring writer and interested in your process. I'm impressed with how you identified some salient points and organized them into a flow. I know I have to keep writing to get better, but if you had any thoughts I'd be interested in how/if you learned to do this?
I am trying to learn how to write mostly by commenting on other Substack posts for now. I get too bogged down in my research process to clear it up enough to write my own posts for now. I am really impressed with your "Letter to Reps" concept in the Replies to a post!
I've never seen that and it is very generous and effective!!!
Thanks for your kind reply, Patrick. I'm afraid I'm not a writer at all, and have been relying on AI to help me condense important articles into a format that will fit online government contact forms without losing salient points. I hope that's not too disappointing!
Not disappointing at all. AI tools are incredibly powerful. The news industry has been slow to adopt them but their utility for a writer of any sort is difficult to ignore. Foolish to ignore. IMO
Have you heard of this… https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lizryan_chatgpt-weighs-in-on-the-big-beautiful-bill-activity-7336882082742239232-kQms?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAC-Yo5cBj8xtB-n75S-tm4nTuYkD1kNz4Q0
As I looked at your post I could imagine you entering the whole article and asking Chat GTP to format it into the contact form.
I do want to do my articles the old fashioned way and I use ChatGTP for prompts and research, but I do struggle to get things written. I got turned onto Indivisible very early in T***p’s first term and their whole deal was contacting your Congress members on an issue and encouraging others to do the same thing. The way you are using AI is genius for that and I applaud you and I’m going to start doing the same thing!!! Thanks for replying!
The ChatGPT tool on the Big Beautiful Bill Act is really interesting but my hope is that they at some point offer the same tool for the entire congressional records since the first Congress. That to me would be some Mount Everest utility from the AI world on my beat.
Thanks, I'm glad if it will be useful to you. There are so many bad things going on right now......for me it would be impossible to digest and personally write letters or call scripts for them all. I need to use the bulk of my time trying to find and understand the most personally important attacks on our democracy and try to build the fight against those. Mostly I feel useless.
Truth be told, I'm not much of a writer ... but when I was a pretty good prose stylist, it was because I read a lot of really great writing, which is, of course, totally subjective. But when I'd read something great when I was younger, I felt competitive with the writer who wrote it, even if they were long dead. I was like, I'm gonna beat 'em! Nowadays instead of writing as well as I can, I tend to write as fast as I can, then clean up my copy with an editor. Truth be told, I don't write the way I'd like to (as in, way more counter-culture-y), because I don't think there's a market for it. Maybe that'll change as I get more established in writing, as opposed to just breaking news reporting, which is my favorite.
Closely listening to the lyrics of Bob Dylan's early albums tended to make me a better writer, too. "It's Alright, Ma" "When I Paint My Masterpiece" "Tangled. Up in Blue" "Hard Rain" ... omg Hard Rain is a great musical preamble to getting real wordy on a page.
Hope that helps!
Just amazing how depraved DHS had become.
No, not really, shish.
If you look at a dying tree, they always die from the top down.
Thanks for citing CDCE's research here! You can see more about our research on who lacks the proof of residency, identity, and citizenship they need to vote here: https://cdce.substack.com/p/which-us-citizens-lack-easy-access
DHS and SSA databases also don’t reflect those who are derivative citizens, ie born abroad to citizen parents.
Every same American citizen should sue this administration for stealing our personal and private information
Well, I'm trying to stay under the radar.
👎👎👎👎👎😾😾😾😾😡😡😡😡
This is FUBAR now. I mean, it was before but the Nazi state has truly settled into place.
And it's actually so much worse than just this particular database, as this troubling report from the Brennan Center pretty clearly articulates https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/ice-wants-go-after-dissenters-well-immigrants
Very disturbing. China, North Korea. Unbelievable.
I hates these Nazi thugs!
How do these people sleep.
⭐ “Grandmas & Grandpas in the Info War Fight!” ⭐
Dear Grandmas and Grandpas
From sea to bright sea,
A message is calling
For you and for me—
We’re living a battle
Of truth vs. spin,
Where the lies try to shout
And the facts try to win.
The Fox-MAGA megaphone
Blasts night and day,
With deepfakes and nonsense
All flying our way.
They twist up the stories,
They scramble the facts,
They feed folks confusion
Through digital tracks.
But we have a power
They don’t understand—
A lifetime of wisdom
And hearts that withstand.
So, gather your courage,
Your coffee, your chair—
Let’s jump in the fight
With some digital flair!
“Use ChatGPT, Gemini or CoPilot?”
Oh yes, indeed do!
It helps write the truth
In a style fresh and new.
It helps draft a comment,
A post, or a share,
It helps check a rumor
For truth hiding there.
Our allies are speaking—
Each brave, steady voice:
Democracy Docket,
Brian Tyler Cohen,
MeidasTouch,
Really American—
All lighting the choice.
They’re naming the dangers,
They’re waving the flags,
While Miller and MAGA
Rev up ICE drag-rags.
But we won’t stay silent,
We won’t disappear—
We’ll speak for our families
With truth loud and clear.
Remember the elders
Who fought long ago—
In France under Nazis,
They whispered, “Let’s go!”
With papers and pamphlets
Passed hand-to-hand fast,
They fought for the future
To outshine the past.
And grandmas in kitchens
Behind Iron Curtain,
Read banned words aloud
Just to keep others certain.
If they held the lanterns
In darkness so grim,
Then surely we rise
When democracy dims.
We’ve keyboards!
We’ve wifi!
We’ve tools they could dream!
We’ve posts, memes, and Substacks
To strengthen the team.
So pick up your laptop,
Your iPad or phone—
Let’s show this new era
We’re not overthrown.
Let’s teach all the grands
How to vet, check, and see,
How to sort out the noise
From reality.
For truth needs defenders,
Not watchers who yawn—
So stand with me proudly,
My Silver Fox Dawn.
If you can scroll Facebook,
You can write what is right.
If you tell a good story,
You can shine someone’s night.
And if you’re still here,
Reading bold, standing tall—
You’re already a soldier
In freedom’s great call.
So onward, dear friends,
With our lanterns of light—
We’ll beam through the darkness
And win this truth fight.
🦅 #ResharingBrigade | #GrandparentsForTruth | #IndependentMedia | #LightInTheDarkness 💙❤️