by WorldTribune Staff, June 23, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
A Biden-appointed federal judge from Trinidad and Tobago has shut down a database used by the Trump Administration to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.
Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan
In a 75-page opinion issued on Monday by Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan wrote that the Trump team’s election integrity operation violates “the right to privacy.”
“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan stated in the decision. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller responded on social media: “Judge Sparkle decrees that America belongs to any random alien on planet earth, just like our founders intended.”
The judge’s decision follows a civil action suit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the state of Texas by parties including the League of Women Voters.
Sooknanan blocked a modified version of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system which was created following a Trump-signed executive order to “verify the citizenship or immigration status of registered voters or individuals registering to vote,” and put in place by the DHS and SSA.
The judge said the Trump Administration’s database, shared among several federal agencies, contains private information on U.S. citizens and thus violates protections put in place by Congress to prevent such centralized data banks, including the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988.
DHS argued that other, more specific immigration laws overrode the general restrictions of the 1988 act, specifically pointing to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which mandates that the federal government respond to state inquiries to verify the citizenship status of any individual.
However, Sooknanan declared the argument “not a winner.”
Sooknanan previously ruled against a Trump administration policy to remove Guatemalan illegal aliens in September 2025. She was appointed to her seat in February 2024 by President Joe Biden and ultimately confirmed in a 50-48 vote in December of the same year.
Sooknanan also blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust probe into Media Matters and barred the executive branch from deporting unaccompanied migrant minors and reunifying them with their families abroad.
🚨 BREAKING: Foreign-born Biden judge Sparkle Sooknanan (yeah, that’s her actual name) has just BARRED the Trump admin from checking citizenship data for voters, per AP
Democrats are TERRIFIED about illegals no longer being able to vote
The federal government was using a… pic.twitter.com/iYePOiENN8
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 22, 2026
