Indiana Citizenship Status Information Access Challenge

Lawsuit filed by the state of Indiana and its secretary of state, Diego Morales (R), against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Kristi Noem, challenging the federal government’s refusal to provide citizenship status information. Last year, Indiana sought to verify the citizenship status of nearly 600,000 registered voters ahead of the 2024 General Election. The plaintiffs claim that the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, an online service used by government agencies to check an individual’s immigration status, is an inadequate means to verify citizenship. They allege that they were unable to conduct a SAVE inquiry on individuals without a “unique immigration identifier,” which are assigned to noncitizens by the federal government and not readily accessible to state governments.

On October 11, 2024, Indiana submitted requests to DHS to verify the citizenship of its registered voters using the government’s Person Centric Query Service (PCQS), a database that allows searches without a unique immigration identifier. The state received no response from the government under the Biden administration and has yet to receive a response from the Trump administration. 

The plaintiffs argue that DHS’s failure to respond violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a federal law that requires federal agencies to provide timely responses to requests from state governments. The plaintiffs ask the court to order DHS to provide state officials with citizenship status of Indiana voters, including access to PCQS if needed.

STATUS: Plaintiffs filed their complaint on April 16, 2025. The government has not responded yet.