Conflicting Court Orders Leave DHS Caught Between Two Judges on the SAVE Database

On July 7, 2026, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II in Pensacola, Florida, ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore bulk-upload and Social Security number search features of the SAVE citizenship-verification system for Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana, finding that DHS breached a settlement agreement with those states when it disabled the features. DHS had switched them off to comply with a June 22 ruling by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, who vacated the modified SAVE system nationwide on privacy and statutory grounds. Wetherell acknowledged the collision, writing that "one of the orders has to give" and that he was "not persuaded" his should be the one to yield. Sooknanan declined the following day to pause her ruling pending appeal, and said Wetherell had "erred in significant ways."

The result is a federal agency operating under two facially incompatible district court orders on a system that states use to check voter rolls for citizenship, months before the 2026 midterms. Beyond the immediate voter-roll question, the standoff tests how a settlement approved in one district interacts with a nationwide vacatur entered in another.

Both orders remain in effect and the dispute is expected to move to the appellate courts.