State of Texas

Texas Citizenship Status Information Access Challenge

The Attorney General of Texas v. Mayorkas

Lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and Secretary of State Jane Nelson (R) against U.S. Secretary of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Ur M. Jaddou and their respective agencies challenging the federal government’s refusal to provide citizenship status information. Texas verifies the citizenship status of registered voters on the state’s voter rolls with information from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which maintains data on citizenship status from Texas driver’s licenses and ID from DHS and USCIS. The plaintiffs claim they are unable to verify the citizenship status of over 450,000 voters because they registered to vote without a Texas driver’s license or ID from DHS or USCIS.

On Sept. 18, 2024, Nelson wrote to Jaddou asking for USCIS’s assistance in verifying these voters’ citizenship status. Jaddou directed Nelson to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program — an online service used by government agencies to check an individual’s immigration status. The plaintiffs claim that they are unable to conduct a SAVE inquiry on individuals without a “unique immigration identifier,” which is assigned to noncitizens by the federal government and not readily accessible to state governments.  On Oct. 7, Paxton asked Jaddou and USCIS to verify the citizenship status themselves and did not receive a response.

The plaintiffs argue that Jaddou and USCIS’s failure to respond violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), a federal law that requires federal agencies to provide timely responses to requests from state governments. They also argue that DHS and USCIS’s decision to provide information on citizenship status only through the SAVE Program violates a federal law that entitles state governments to receive citizenship status information and a provision of the APA that requires all agency programs to comply with federal law. The plaintiffs ask the court to order the DHS and USCIS to provide the citizenship status of these voters so the state can verify they are lawfully registered.

STATUS: The plaintiffs filed their complaint on Oct. 22, 2024. The defendants have not responded yet.

Case Documents

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