Senators raise concerns about Trump citizenship data system : NPR
The new Citizenship Citizenship System Citizenship of the Trump administration is designed to be used by states and local electoral officials to give them an easier way to make sure that only citizens vote.
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Three Democratic American senators are causing concerns about a consulted citizenship data system developed under the Trump administration, warning that its use could lead to the priority of eligible voters.
NPR was the first media to report in detail on the tool, which, according to citizenship and immigration services), can be used to check the citizenship of most of the people listed on the lists of state voters if a social security number, a name and a date of birth are provided.
The system of the Ministry of Internal Security links a network of federal databases on immigration with data from the social security administration. This integration means that managers of the county and state elections can verify citizenship not only of naturalized citizens born abroad, but also citizens born in the United States for the first time.
The Trump administration has combined and linked government data sets to the Americans in an unprecedented manner, and there are questions about what the federal government could do with the United States the United States.
Legal and confidentiality experts told the NPR last month that they were alarmed that the new data system – which is an upgrading of an existing USCIS platform known as systematic verification of extraterrestrials for rights or safeguarding – was in the process of being quickly deployed without transparent processes or public opinions generally required for such projects by federal confidentiality.
Democratic US Sens. Alex Padilla of California, Gary Peters of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon raised this point in a letter to the Kristi Interior Security Secretary on Monday.
“Public transparency and insurance that the ministry appropriately protects citizens’ rights, including privacy, is extremely important,” wrote senators. “Unfortunately, the DHS has not published any of the routine documents and required on the operations and guarantees of the program or has issued a public opinion or opinion at the Congress.”
Senators have also raised questions about the accuracy of the tool and if it could make eligible citizens by mistake as non -eligible to vote.
In the performance of the 2024 elections, President Trump and his allies pushed the baseless account that the Democrats had enabled migrants to enter the country so that they voted illegally in large numbers and steal the elections. There is no evidence of such a program, and state audits have revealed that non -citizen votes were rare. Research has revealed that many cases are due to non-citizens wrongly believing that they were authorized to vote in the federal elections.
Nevertheless, the Republicans at the federal levels and states have led to new stages of verification to ensure that the non-citizens do not go.
In the executive decree of Trump’s March 25 on the vote, he called on the DHS to give the states “access to appropriate systems” at no cost to verify the citizenship of voters on their lists. The same order told the Attorney General to prioritize the prosecution of non-citizens who register or vote.
USCIS spokesperson Matthew Trageserser said in a statement last month that backup of the backup system were a “game changer”.
“USCIS moves quickly to eliminate the advantages and electoral fraud among the extraterrestrial population,” said Trageser.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the Senators’ letter.
Although DHS has so far shared only limited information on the new tool with the public, a member of the agency staff presented in private the electoral integrity network, a group aligned by Trump known for having pushed the stories of false and misleading electoral fraud.
The senators wrote that they were “seriously concerned” that the DHS “did not share information with the legislators and the public, but would have provided a briefing in advance to the modifications made to the database of the electoral integrity network, an organization founded by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked to cancel the results of the 2020 elections.”
The letter calls on the USCIS to inform staff of the Senate committees on rules and internal administration and security and government affairs and to provide all the documents shared with the electoral integrity network.
Senators also ask Noem to provide answers to detailed questions, such as the agency has provided a public opinion before launching the data system, how the precision of the tool has been tested, how personal data is backups and if the federal agency will keep the data from the voters.
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