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Trump Calls for GOP to Pass Major Attack on US Voting Rights 'At the Expense of Everything Else'
The SAVE America Act and related bills "aren't about keeping our elections free and fair," warned the ACLU. "They're about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don't like."
Mar 05, 2026
In a pair of Truth Social posts on Thursday, President Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans to pass the voter suppression bill that is stalled in the US Senate after being advanced by the House of Representatives last month.
"The Republicans MUST DO, with PASSION, and at the expense of everything else, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT—And not the watered down version. This is a Country Defining fight for the Soul of our Nation!" Trump wrote Thursday morning.
In a separate post about an hour later, the president added:
THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!
1. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. (IDENTIFICATION!).
2. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO VOTE.
3. NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!).
4. NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.
5. NO TRANSGENDER MUTILATION SURGERY FOR CHILDREN, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS
The posts came just eight months ahead of the midterms that will determine which party controls each chamber of Congress for the rest of the president's second term—which is also supposed to be his final, under the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, but the 79-year-old with a history of lying about election results and voter fraud has repeatedly teased trying to stay in power.
Trump and other advocates of the SAVE America Act—and its state-level copycats—have claimed that the bill is necessary to prevent immigrants from participating in elections, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal and research has made clear that voter fraud is incredibly rare in the United States.
The House-approved version of the bill, led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would require states to regularly submit voter rolls to the US Department of Homeland Security, and to obtain proof of citizenship, in person, when registering someone to vote. It would also force voters to present eligible photo identification at the polls.
Critics of the bill have argued that rather than tackling the nonexistent issue of noncitizen voting, the SAVE America Act would disenfranchise eligible voters who don't have access to proof of citizenship documents—such as people who have lost paperwork, can't afford replacements, or have changed their names.
The ACLU has a tool to help Americans contact their senator to oppose the SAVE Act, SAVE America Act, and Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act. The automatic message says in part that "these bills aren't about keeping our elections free and fair. They're about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don't like. Please reject these dangerous, anti-voter bills."
The SAVE Act and its more extreme version, the SAVE America Act, could shut millions of eligible citizens out of our democracy.Tell Congress to reject these attacks on our freedom to vote at aclu.org/stop_anti_voter_
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— ACLU (@aclu.org) March 3, 2026 at 1:29 PM
While House Republicans were able to approve the legislation mostly along party lines—the only Democrat who supported it was Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who notably received a pardon from the president recently—the Senate GOP's majority is too slim to get most bills past the 60-vote filibuster without some Democratic support.
Trump also renewed his call for passing the legislation in his State of the Union address last month, specifically calling out Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). The following day, the Associated Press reported that Thune backs the bill, and Republicans were discussing how to send it to the president's desk.
According to the AP:
Senate Republicans "aren't unified on an approach," Thune said on Wednesday after Trump's speech.
In an effort to get around Democratic opposition, Trump and others have pushed a so-called "talking filibuster," which would bring the Senate back to the days of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when senators talked indefinitely to block legislation. Today, the Senate mostly skips the speeches and votes to end debate, which takes 60 votes in the Senate where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.
Republicans wouldn't have to change the rules to force a talkathon. They could simply keep the Senate open and make Democrats deliver speeches for days or weeks to delay taking up the legislation. But Thune would still need enough support from his caucus to move forward with that approach, and he said this week that "we aren't there yet."
Absent progress in the Senate, several state legislatures are considering similar bills. Citing the Voting Rights Lab tracker, Talking Points Memo reported Tuesday that 15 states have 26 active election bills with proof of citizenship requirements.
"I think what we're often seeing in these states is that there's an effort to send political messages that don't necessarily comport with the reality of election integrity or the needs of election officials," David Becker, a former US Department of Justice lawyer and executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told TPM.
"Like the SAVE Act, this would require citizens to regularly work to make up for government deficiencies, digging out and showing their citizenship papers over and over and over again when they've already shown them," Becker said of state-level proposals. "Why are we insisting that citizens have to work for government, rather than government working for us?"
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Florida Republicans Ripped for Advancing Show-Me-Your-Papers Voter ID Bill
"This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy," said the ACLU of Florida's executive director.
Feb 25, 2026
With 251 days until the US general election, Florida Republicans on Wednesday passed a show-me-your-papers bill that opponents warn could prevent thousands of eligible state voters from registering if they don't have a valid birth certificate or passport, or their documents don't reflect a name change.
"Midterm elections are coming later this year—and they're a crucial test of our democracy," ACLU of Florida executive director Bacardi Jackson said in a Wednesday statement. "Moments like this bring new voters into the process and give communities the power to hold leaders accountable—exactly what a healthy democracy demands. But right now, some lawmakers are pushing an anti-voter bill that could shut thousands of eligible people out of our elections and discourage the enrollment of new eligible voters."
The Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 83-31 on HB 991, sponsored by Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-78).
"The Florida House version of the bill would only go into effect in January 2027. But under a similar bill set for consideration in the Florida Senate, the new rules would take effect this July, before the November midterm elections," Democracy Docket detailed. "A House committee already gave preliminary approval to the bill earlier this month."
Jackson highlighted that "many eligible voters don't have ready access to an unexpired passport or an original or certified copy of their birth certificate because of logistical and financial barriers. More than 8 million Floridians do not have a valid passport, and because many women legally change their name upon marriage, more than 4.7 million women in Florida do not have a birth certificate reflecting their current legal name—documents this bill would require."
"At the same time, this proposal would eliminate current, valid forms of ID proving eligibility at the polls, including student IDs, retirement center IDs, and public assistance IDs," she warned. "Taken together, these changes are not neutral or harmless—they would fall hardest on low-income voters, students, seniors, women, and Black and brown Floridians."
The ACLU leader also argued that "context matters. This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy." She specifically pointed to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act that the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives passed earlier this month.
"We're seeing parallel efforts nationally to make it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots—including the SAVE Act being debated in Congress right now—and Florida is leading the way down this authoritarian path," she said. The federal bill is less likely to get through the US Senate, whose filibuster rule requires the GOP to get some Democratic support to advance most legislation.
"What makes this even more galling is that lawmakers don't have to do any of this at all—they are choosing to," said Jackson. "They could enact reforms making it easier for eligible Floridians to vote and have their voices be heard, like the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act, HB 1419/SB 1598. Instead, they are fast-tracking legislation that would make voting harder for eligible Floridians and silence communities that deserve to be heard."
"We will not stand by while politicians in power seek to entrench their power at the expense of the people's rights," she vowed. "We will keep organizing and fighting to reclaim and defend our democracy—because every eligible Floridian deserves to vote."
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to hold a vote on the SAVE America Act this week. President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to increase pressure on Congress to send the bill to his desk.
"I'm asking you to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections—that cheating is rampant in our elections," Trump said. "It's very simple: All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None."
Experts have long countered such GOP claims by emphasizing that, as the Brennan Center for Justice put it in a pair of blog posts, "noncitizen voting is already illegal" and "extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare."
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel for the national voting rights group Fair Elections Center, told Democracy Docket on Wednesday that Florida's voter suppression bill "would do a lot of the same things," as the SAVE America Act, "in terms of preventing American citizens from voting who don't have access to documentary proof of citizenship documents."
"The last thing someone who is on a path to citizenship would want to do is to jeopardize their naturalization by voting illegally," Kanter Cohen said. "And so people don't do that. That's not something that's happening because it has such dire consequences."
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Trump Admin Sued Over 'Unlawful Warrantless Arrests' During North Carolina ICE Blitz
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” said one plaintiff. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else."
Feb 24, 2026
A coalition of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday "seeking to prevent a pattern of unlawful warrantless arrests in North Carolina that is harming communities" during the Trump administration's deadly crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their defenders.
Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on behalf of five individuals, including four American citizens and one legal US resident from El Salvador.
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” 46-year-old plaintiff Willy Aceituno said in a statement. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I want to help protect my Latino family, friends, and neighbors.”
Another plaintiff, 23-year-old North Carolina native Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, said: “I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me."
“I think it is important to take action through this case so that the government starts doing their jobs correctly instead of stopping people solely because they look a certain way," Cuenca added.
Democracy Forward said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: "In mid-November, the Trump-Vance administration accelerated its immigration crackdown across North Carolina during Operation Charlotte’s Web. Heavily armed, masked DHS agents, including ICE and CBP officers, roamed Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other communities, detaining and arresting people indiscriminately without warrants or legal justification."
"Each plaintiff was arrested by DHS agents without probable cause to believe that they are legally removable from the country and that they pose a flight risk—determinations required under federal law for warrantless arrests," Democracy Forward continued.
The plaintiffs “represent a class of individuals who have been or will be subjected to warrantless immigration arrests by DHS in North Carolina, including arrests made without probable cause based on flight risk or removability," the group added. "They ask the federal court for the Western District of North Carolina to declare DHS’ mass warrantless arrest policy unlawful and to issue a permanent injunction blocking these unlawful practices.”
ACLU-NC staff attorney Corina Scott said in a statement Tuesday: “Federal immigration agents have consistently ignored the law and trampled civil rights in North Carolina. This lawsuit seeks to stop this abuse of power and demand accountability going forward so that our communities do not continue to suffer violent and unlawful arrests.”
We just filed the first class action lawsuit challenging unlawful warrantless immigration arrests in North Carolina amid the federal government's crackdown. Join us in calling for an end to ICE & CBP terror! https://rebrand.ly/iceout
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— ACLU of North Carolina (@aclunc.bsky.social) February 24, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said that “when armed, masked agents are breaking car windows, handcuffing people without probable cause, and dumping them on the side of the road, that is not law enforcement, it is lawlessness."
"Congress was explicit: Warrantless immigration arrests require individualized probable cause to be proven," she noted. "That standard is not optional based on the whims of whoever is in the White House. [DHS] is carrying out mass arrests that disregard the limits that Congress imposed and the Constitution requires. Federal agencies do not have the authority to sweep up people in America—whether they are US citizens, lawful residents, or anyone else—without legal justification."
"This case is about restoring basic guardrails on government power and ensuring that federal officers follow the law they are sworn to uphold," Perryman added.
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