Exclusive: The Trump Administration Is Building A National Citizenship Data System

The NPR Politics Podcast

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Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

For decades, voting officials have noted that there was no national citizenship list to compare their state lists to, so to verify citizenship for their voters, they either needed to ask people to provide a birth certificate or a passport — something that could disenfranchise millions — or use a complex patchwork of disparate data sources. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is offering another way: creating a searchable data system of citizenship records. Elections officials and privacy advocates are expressing concern.

This episode: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, voting correspondent Miles Parks, and power & influence reporter Jude Joffe-Block.

This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
0:05.4	RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.
0:12.1	Learn more at RWJF.org.
0:15.6	Hi, this is Melissa from Canapolis, North Carolina, and I just stopped by my local farmer's market to purchase some fresh peaches and canalope. This podcast was recorded at 1.19 p.m. on Monday, June 30th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I will be enjoying some yummy, fresh local produce. Okay, enjoy the show.
0:40.8	I had a peach this morning, but I bet hers is better.
0:43.7	I feel like I love peaches, but I'm very intimidated by the mess. I feel like I always end up with just like goop all over my hands.
0:49.4	I don't know how to cut a peach. I will admit that at this stage in my life, I just, it doesn't make sense to me.
0:54.7	Just you got to bite straight in. Right. Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Dupes
0:59.2	Chivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Jude Jaffe Black. I'm on the
1:03.5	power and influence team. And today on the show, an NPR exclusive. The Trump administration has built the first searchable data system that can check
1:11.8	whether a person is a U.S. citizen. It's being rolled out now to help states ensure non-citizens
1:16.6	don't vote in federal elections. So, Miles, let's start with this. How big of a problem is
1:21.7	non-citizen voting in federal elections? We've talked about this a lot over the last year or two,
1:26.9	right? It has never been found to be a widespread problem in American elections. We've talked about this a lot over the last year or two, right? It has never been
1:28.7	found to be a widespread problem in American elections. And I will say people, states, government
1:35.0	entities are devoting more resources than ever to try to find root out this quote unquote problem.
1:40.7	And it is still just never been found to be anything but microscopic numbers.
1:45.0	But I will say that for the kind of small number of people who are on voter rolls, when
1:51.1	election officials do have a question about their citizenship, that has been an issue.
1:56.0	Election officials find it pretty tough.
1:58.3	It's laborious work.
1:59.6	It has traditionally taken a number of different
	...

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