News

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assured a judge in Washington, D.C., that it was shuttering a controversial citizenship database, but would make the tool available to four Republican-led states on a different judge’s orders. The paradoxical situation emerged after both federal judges issued contradictory rulings on the database, which critics say is ill-suited for voter verification and prone to flagging U.S. citizens as potential noncitizens.

A federal judge in Florida ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must allow four Republican-led states to again use a federal database to search for noncitizens on their voter registration rolls. The decision conflicts with a previous ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. that blocked access to the database. It will likely unspool into a tangle of competing court orders in the coming months.

Four Republican-led states want their access restored to a federal database for checking their voter registration records for noncitizens.