Texas authorities on Oct. 22 sued the federal government for not turning over requested citizenship records for about 450,000 people, whom they claim might be registered to vote despite being noncitizens.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson have been seeking records from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The USCIS has declined to provide information beyond access to a database called SAVE, which requires a unique number, known as an immigration identifier, for each person.
“We currently cannot offer an alternative process” to verify whether a person is a citizen, USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou told Nelson in an Oct. 10 letter filed with the court….