A U.S. federal appeals court rejected the administration of U.S. President \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s\u201d request to lift a ban on using a federal immigration database to verify the accuracy of citizenship data contained in voter rolls in the United States.<\/p>\n
In a ruling issued Friday by a two-to-one majority, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a lower court\u2019s decision barring the use of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s \u201cSystematic Alien Verification for Entitlements\u201d database for this purpose.<\/p>\n
The earlier ruling barred the government from using the system ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for November 3, during which Republicans are seeking to maintain their narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress.<\/p>\n
Chief Judge \u201cSri Srinivasan\u201d and Circuit Judge \u201cRobert Wilkins,\u201d both of whom were appointed to the Court of Appeals by former President \u201cBarack Obama,\u201d upheld the lower court\u2019s decision, which found that the verification system violates the Social Security Act by sharing private personal information belonging to millions of Americans.<\/p>\n
The appeals court judges also expressed concerns that the database could contain inaccurate information regarding the citizenship of some individuals, which could lead to voters being asked to prove their citizenship in order to maintain their registration on voter rolls, and in some cases could even result in their registrations being canceled.<\/p>\n
U.S. Circuit Judge \u201cGregory Katsas,\u201d who was appointed by Trump, dissented from the majority opinion.<\/p>\n
The ruling comes amid legal disputes over the use of the database at the state level. In July, a judge in Florida ordered the Department of Homeland Security to resume granting four Republican-led states access to the database, after another judge had barred the department from continuing to use it nationwide.<\/p>\n
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