An immigration think tank is calling for Congress to consider mandating the use of a citizenship verification for voter registration after the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to make the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements more user-friendly for state and local election offices.   Last week, the DHS settled a case with four states–Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio—to overhaul the citizenship verification system. The report, which the Center for Immigration Studies published Monday, characterizes the 1993 National Voter Registration Act as “fatally flawed,” claiming that it “not only facilitates vote fraud but also results in legal aliens mistakenly voting and putting themselves at risk.” “Congress should revisit the NVRA’s prohibition against officials ‘mak[ing] any statement … or tak[ing] any action the purpose or effect of which is to discourage … applicant[s] from registering to vote’ to allow for discouraging non-citizens from registering,” CIS Senior Legal Fellow George Fishman writes in the report. “In addition, Congress should encourage, or to the extent possible mandate, states to utilize the SAVE program to verify the citizenship status of voters and applicants to register.” Settlement With States The new settlement requires the federal government to modernize the citizenship verification tools so every state and territory—not just the four litigants—can more easily prevent non-citizens from voting. “This agreement will continue U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ efforts to improve the SAVE program for states to combat voter fraud, protect election integrity, and verify immigration and citizenship status for state benefits and programs,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Signal in a statement.  “The Department of Homeland Security urges all states to adopt SAVE and join us in enforcing the law and safeguarding the voting rights of American citizens,” McLaughlin added.   The DHS committed to making upgrades to SAVE that include free verification services for all state and local governments; allow for verification using full Social Security numbers or use the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The settlement allows for states to do bulk uploads to process verifications more efficiently, which eliminates the need for one-by-one manual entries. The four states entered into an information sharing agreement. The SAVE system was established in 1987 to help state and local governments to verify if someone was legally eligible for social service benefits using the alien identification numbers assigned by the federal government.  “It’s silly that the Left freaks out about data sharing about this. State government agencies interact with federal data all the time,” Logan Churchwell, research director at the Public Interest Legal Foundation,  told The Daily Signal. “They are more afraid of getting ripped off on welfare benefits but not afraid someone would steal votes and elect politicians that would vote on welfare policy.” In March, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The order included a provision making SAVE data accessible for state and local governments using a Social Security number to crosscheck citizenship status—instead of only alien ID numbers—as a means to prevent illegal voting or illegal voter registration.  The system wasn’t easy to use, Churchwell noted. “Election officials would have to look at one name at a time. Trump got rid of the alien ID number requirement, and allowed [them] to run a search with Social Security numbers,” Churchwell said. “Now some states will be able to run just the last four digits of a Social Security number.” The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which represents a coalition of liberal groups, has opposed the reforms. Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, the conference’s vice president for the Center for Civil Rights and Technology, opposes SAVE in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security. “Members of our coalition, including the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice, condemned SAVE,” says Montoya-Boyer’s letter to Homeland Security Chief Privacy Officer Roman Jankowski. “They recognized that it could disenfranchise voters by effectively ending online or mail voter registration and by pushing eligible voters off the voting rolls. Subsequently, privacy and civil society advocates filed a lawsuit in opposition to the SAVE system.”  ‘Obama … Showed It Could Be Done’ In 2011, the Obama administration’s Justice Department under then-Attorney General Eric Holder gave pre-clearance to SAVE under the Voting Rights Act.  North Carolina had approached the DHS saying it had noncitizens with driver’s licenses from the state DMV who were registered to vote.  The verification database for voting wasn’t controversial in the past, Churchwell said.  “The Holder DOJ gave pre-clearance to North Carolina to use the SAVE system. North Carolina was the first state to kick in the door,” Churchwell told The Daily Signal. “The Obama administration DOJ and DHS showed it could be done under the Voting Rights Act.”  In November, the Trump administration scored a preliminary court victory when Joe Biden-appointed Judge Sparkle Sooknanan declined to halt the citizenship verification database, and allowed it to remain continue to be accessible for states to cross-check voter registration data. The League of Women Voters was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in September alleging the database information was unreliable and could be used to purge legally eligible voters from the voter rolls. The post SAFEGUARDING THE VOTE: Trump Administration Further Modernizes Citizenship Verification appeared first on The Daily Signal.

State laws that seek to protect children online could come under threat by continuing efforts in Washington to create an AI regulation moratorium on the state and local level. President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would be signing an executive order to restrict individual state regulations of artificial intelligence, the latest development in an ongoing fight in Washington about how AI is regulated in the United States. Congress, at the urging of the White House, has considered adding an AI regulation moratorium in two massive legislative vehicles this year: the One Big Beautiful Bill and the yet-to-be-passed National Defense Authorization Act. “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” the president said in a Truth Social post adding, “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.” AI Provision Left Out of NDAA The executive order would likely be a stand in for future legislation after legislative efforts, most recently in the NDAA, have failed. According to a report from Axios, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., were trying to add language into the NDAA that would preempt or override state-level AI regulations. Some of the bills that would come to regulate AI on the federal level would likely pass through Cruz’s Senate committee as the Texas senator eyes another White House bid in 2028. What Policy Experts Are Saying Policy experts and conservative activists remain divided on the moratorium, but its opponents are quick to point out that the moratorium could put state laws to protect children at risk. Several states have already sought to provide legal guardrails on how the emerging technology can be used, seeking to provide protections for consumers and prevent the abuse of American citizens through AI tools like synthetic pornography. Daniel Cochrane, a senior research associate at the Center for Technology and the Human Person at the Heritage Foundation, noted the importance of states in aiding Americans. “States are Americans’ first line of defense against Big Tech. While Congress dithers—failing year after year to enact common sense standards to protect kids from predatory social media platforms, secure privacy, and address emerging risks from generative AI—states are filling the void,” Cochrane told The Daily Signal. “From prohibiting AI generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and placing limits on AI ‘therapists’ and ‘companions,’ to safeguarding artists’ creative rights and building public sector capacity to deploy AI responsibly, states are aligning AI with Main Street American values,” Cochrane said. Cochrane recommended a cooperative approach when asked about the upcoming executive order. “To strike the right balance, both the federal government and states need to work together. That will require a transparent, deliberative process to ensure AI promotes flourishing for all Americans. The administration should use its convening power to bring state officials, parents, labor, privacy advocates, and other parties together to work toward a federal standard,” Cochrane continued. The president’s announcement regarding the AI executive order comes in the wake of a draft executive order on the topic was leaked last month. Some legal experts raised initial concerns about the leaked draft executive order, and it remains to be seen whether those issues will be addressed in the executive memorandum that is expected to be issued this week. Don’t Mess With Texas Texas has taken steps to protect kids while making the Lone Star State an attractive place for technology companies to do business. Texas has signed laws such as the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act and Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (TRAIGA). The SCOPE Act seeks to protect minors from content that “promotes, glorifies, or facilitates suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, stalking, bullying, harassment, grooming, trafficking, child pornography, or other sexual exploitation or abuse.” TRAIGA, meanwhile, prevents the development or distribution of AI systems that produce deepfake child or other pornographic content. The Daily Signal spoke with David Dunmoyer, the associate vice president of campaigns at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who praised the regulatory approach of Texas on the issue of AI. “I worked very closely with a lawmaker who wrote [the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act], and we spent over two years,” Dunmoyer explained, adding “We had an AI council. We heard from government agencies and how they’re using AI. We had multiple hearings in the [state] house, in the [state] senate, hearing from the private sector, hearing from industry.” The policy expert elaborated on the efforts taken to accommodate the needs of AI companies. “And then on top of that, we had a year plus long stakeholder process, specifically for that one bill, where we brought in over 250 industry leaders to hash out and build consensus around what a responsible AI bill would look like,” he explained. What Role Could the Federal Government Play? Lance Christensen, the Vice President of Government Affairs and Education Policy at the California Policy Center, emphasized the need for the federal government to be involved with a baseline regulatory framework and clear standards. “This is one of the few areas where I say the Congress maybe should have a little more input about what’s actually going to happen and set a framework so the states can actually have good and applicable laws that don’t constrain other states,” Christensen told The Daily Signal. He expressed concern that major AI corporations could harness particular states’ regulations to crush their competition in other states.  “I think somebody in Congress needs to step up and say, we’re going to address this now. This is going to happen before the end of 2026 and not make threats about funding for other things until they have some sort of framework in place,” Christensen said referencing the broadband funding that states could have lost if they had not complied with the moratorium provision that was ultimately excluded from the One, Big Beautiful Bill.  Ted Bolema, a senior fellow with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which is located in Michigan, expressed support for a version of the moratorium. He expressed worry that regulating AI at the state level would make it difficult for businesses to operate across state lines. “The point of the moratorium is to avoid the patchwork problem and make it possible for AI innovators to innovate with a clearer set of rules that they are to follow,” Bolema told The Daily Signal. The post As Washington Looks for Way to Pass AI Regulation Moratorium, State Laws to Protect Children in Danger appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Supreme Court arguments about campaign spending limits included open talk of a JD Vance 2028 presidential campaign, in a case first launched by the vice president when he was running for U.S. Senate.  In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, the Trump administration is not defending the current federal law, which prohibits political parties from coordinating with candidates on how they spend campaign funds. If the Supreme Court sides with the Republicans, it would mean candidates can accept funding directly from a political party and also discuss with party officials how to use the funds.   The case emerged in 2022, when plaintiffs including then-Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Vance, as well as then-Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, sued the Federal Election Commission, contending that coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment.  In lieu of the government’s defense, the Democratic National Committee has intervened to argue in favor of upholding the restriction, enlisting the party’s super lawyer Marc Elias. Elias said the DNC, the NRSC, and other political committees “are given a special privilege, to make millions of dollars of in-kind contributions to candidates.”  “These limits on income contributions are called coordinated expenditures, but they do not pose any meaningful burden on party speech,” Elias argued before the court. “In fact, the vast majority of them hardly involve speech at all. The practical effect of petitioners’ case would be to convert the political parties into mere paymasters, to set invoices on campaign vendors.”  When passing the law, members of Congress defended the restriction as necessary to prevent the potential laundering of bribes through a political party. Noel Francisco, the lawyer representing the Republican committee, said this would note be possible. He pointed out that contributions to parties are limited to $44,000, while contributions to political action committees are unlimited.  “A would-be briber would be better off just giving a massive donation to the candidate’s favorite super PAC,” Francisco said. “That’s why no one has identified a single case in which a donor has actually laundered it or bribed to a candidate.” Vance’s Future Plans? Proponents for keeping the law in place argued that the case is moot and plaintiffs lack standing because the Trump administration is unlikely to enforce it.   Francisco contended there is no reason Vance would take that chance.  “There’s no evidence that the vice president has abandoned his intention to run for federal office in 2028,” Francisco said. “At least 15 of the last 18 vice presidents have gone on to run for the presidency, and regardless of the current executive’s views of the First Amendment, it would be insane for Vance or the committees to knowingly violate this law, since it is a criminal statute with a five-year statute of limitations.”  However, Roman Martinez, whom the justices appointed to argue for upholding the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals‘ ruling to keep the law in place, stressed that the plaintiffs lacked standing because Vance is not a candidate.  “Vice President Vance has repeatedly denied having any concrete plan to run for office in 2028,” Martinez noted. Chief Justice John Roberts asked what happens if Vance did run for another office, and didn’t want to follow the law banning coordinated expenditures. “If the vice president came to you and said, ‘I want legal advice on whether or not I can violate these limits, because I’ve heard that somebody said, ‘Don’t worry about it, they’re not gonna be enforced,’’ would you tell him to ‘Go ahead?’” Roberts asked. “Maybe one thing would you tell him to do is, ‘We ought to be careful, because maybe somebody else will be in the White House next term. They may decide to prosecute this.’” Martinez said he would advise Vance to consult the FEC for an opinion.  “Any person can go to the FEC and request an advisory opinion about whether their conduct is lawful, and if the FEC says, ‘Yes, it’s lawful,’ as they obviously would here because they [the administration] think the conduct is lawful, then there is a statutory safe harbor that would provide total relief, total protection to the vice president,” Martinez said.  Evidence of Bribe Laundering? Justice Sonia Sotomayor said evidence of bribery inspired campaign finance laws in the 1970s. The dairy industry appeared to have laundered money to the 1972 Nixon campaign through the Republican National Committee. The dairy industry received a government bailout.  “Was that a quid pro quo? It appears,” Sotomayor said.  “If there’s no direct evidence, it’s because our umbrella is working,” Sotomayor added. “You now want to take that umbrella completely away.” Francisco responded that there are no state examples of bribes laundered through parties.  “We actually have 28 states in this country that impose no limits on a party’s ability to coordinate with its candidates, none. We don’t have any examples from those 28 states,” Francisco said.  Likely Verdict? The court did not appear inclined toward one side or the other, since justices on both sides had tough questions for lawyers, said former FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky, now a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. But he said the NRSC has a 60% chance of prevailing, based on the arguments. “Noel Francisco made a strong case as to why the Supreme Court should throw out the restrictions on First Amendment and on associational rights,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal.  “Marc Elias, despite the fact that he has huge amounts of money and organizations behind him, has gotten pretty much a losing record in court,” von Spakovsky added.  The post Vance 2028 Buzz in SCOTUS Arguments During Campaign Spending Limits Case appeared first on The Daily Signal.

November’s White House meeting between Prime Minister Viktor Orban and President Donald Trump was more than just a diplomatic photo op. It was a geopolitical turning point that established a new foundation for U.S.-Hungarian relations and launched what many across Europe are already calling a golden age of partnership. For years, Brussels insisted that small nations must bend, obey, and absorb the ideological fashions of the moment. That era is ending. Two nations committed to strength, stability, and peace have chosen a different path. The achievements of the Trump-Orban summit speak for themselves. First, Hungarian families won. The lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russian energy companies for Hungary eliminates a politically engineered chokepoint that threatened our hard-won utility price reductions. Energy security is not an abstraction. It is what keeps household bills low for millions of families. Removing Washington’s sanctions barrier ensures that Hungary can maintain affordable, reliable energy without being punished for rejecting to adopt the European Union’s green ideology. Second, the summit cemented historic nuclear cooperation. Hungary’s nuclear plant expansion continues uninterrupted, and we are preparing to purchase advanced American small modular reactors. These reactors provide clean baseload power grounded in real engineering rather than the green wishcasting that keeps Europe dependent on unstable energy markets. It is also a significant investment in U.S. technology that will establish Hungary as Central Europe’s nuclear hub. Third, Trump agreed to provide a financial protective shield to guard Hungary against speculative attacks from Brussels and its political allies. This will stabilize our currency, steady the markets, and deprive globalists of one of their most frequently used weapons: politically motivated financial disruption. Fourth, the partnership is no longer just ceremonial. It is deep, operational economic cooperation rooted in shared interests. American capital and technology are paired with Hungary’s stability, skilled workforce, and predictable regulatory climate. Hungarian families will feel the benefits in the short term, and American investors will feel them in the long term, as they recognize that Hungary is the most reliable and sovereign-minded partner in Central Europe. Fifth, the summit reaffirmed Hungary’s role as a peacemaker. Trump made it clear that the idea of a Budapest Peace Summit is still on the table. Unlike Western Europe, Hungary never succumbed to the war fever that swept the continent. From the beginning, we have insisted that peace, not escalation for the sake of appearances, is the only responsible path out of the Ukraine-Russian war. A successful outcome would entail a structured package including an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian relief, protection of civilians and minorities, and a realistic framework for security guarantees. Budapest is the only European capital in Europe capable of hosting such a conversation credibly, calmly, and seriously. It is no surprise that EU officials, the NGO media complex, Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar and the Hungarian Left, and even President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded with nearly identical talking points aimed at undermining the agreement. They are nervous because the world they built on lecturing sovereign nations is collapsing. Hungary and the United States have modeled what a partnership based on mutual respect looks like, and others are taking notice. As Hungary approaches its elections, the strengthened trans-Atlantic alliance provides economic stability, policy freedom, and strategic depth. The financial shield protects the Hungarian Forint from political manipulation. Washington now treats Budapest as an equal partner. This enables us to maintain effective policies, such as a workfare economy, robust family support, a zero-tolerance border policy, and nuclear energy that reliably provides electricity. Sovereignty is not just a slogan. It is relationships that deliver results. Many Americans still underestimate the extent of our existing business ties. Thousands of American companies operate profitably in Hungary, employing tens of thousands of people and taking advantage of our strategic location, world-class infrastructure, and reliable workforce. They stay because conservative governance produces predictability. They invest because Hungary’s energy strategy—from U.S. liquid natural gas to future small modular reactors—offers long term reliability, which Western Europe cannot provide. For the United States, Hungary offers a stable foothold in the heart of Europe. For Hungary, it is a valuable investment that strengthens the economy and our sovereignty. Regarding migration and border control, Hungary has become a model not because of ideology, but because of its clarity. Borders matter. A nation that cannot control who enters cannot defend its future. Hungary insists that demographic decline must be solved with strong families, not mass migration, and America’s conservative movement increasingly agrees. We have built a workfare society rooted in order, security, and responsibility. This stability is why investors come, why families thrive, and why our culture remains strong. Lastly, the Trump-Orban summit was not only the pinnacle of Hungarian diplomacy; it also sent a clear signal to the world. Trump demonstrated that he views Hungary as a sovereign and reliable power capable of making meaningful contributions to the alliance. This strengthens the Hungarian people and warns Brussels that its era of coercion is coming to an end. A golden age has begun. It rests on a simple truth: When sovereign nations defend their energy security, economic stability, cultural identity, and peace, everyone wins. The world is watching what Hungary and the United States are building together. And others will follow. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post A Golden Age in US-Hungarian Relations Has Begun appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In solidly blue Illinois, members of the state’s conservative Freedom Caucus are harshly criticizing the reinstatement of a non-citizen as a police officer who was recently arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement. On Oct. 15, ICE arrested Radule Bojovic, an alleged “illegal alien from Montenegro who was recently sworn in as a police officer in the Chicago suburb of Hanover Park.”  The Department of Homeland Security alleged that “Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally in the U.S.” After being released on bond Oct. 31, Bojovic went back to work for the Hanover Park police department, per Fox 32 Chicago. Now, conservative legislators in the state’s Freedom Caucus are calling for action. “You have a situation where a non-citizen is here with arrest powers over the citizenry of the folks here in the state of Illinois, and this is something that we cannot stand for,” Rep. Adam Niemerg told The Daily Signal. “We’re having a full investigation with the DOJ, with ICE enforcement, with my Freedom Caucus colleagues and myself, and we’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on.” .@GovPritzker doesn’t just allow illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois’s communities, he allows them to work as sworn police officers.Radule Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally… pic.twitter.com/7rQFULQh20— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 16, 2025 “This popped up, and we’ve been kind of trying to chase down the details and so we FOIA’d [filed Freedom of Information Act requests] to try to find out—we haven’t got this back yet—but we’ve tried to uncover the employment documents. Did he lie about his status? There’s more questions than we have answers right now,” state Rep. Chris Miller told The Daily Signal. But these legislators are not completely optimistic about being able to build a coalition in the Illinois General Assembly to prevent this from happening in the future. Why? Because Republicans in the state assembly voted for a bill allowing noncitizens whose deportation has been deferred by the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process” to apply to be law enforcement officers.  It passed with 100 yeas and only 7 nays through the House on May 19, 2023 before being sent to the governor. Republicans outside the Freedom Caucus “aren’t going to talk about it because they voted for it,” Miller told The Daily Signal. “I mean, this is embarrassing for the Republican Party here in the state of Illinois, and it’s just another example of the lack of leadership we have at the core of the Illinois Republican Party, and particularly in the House of Representatives.” Miller continued, “It’s a disaster, and these guys can’t talk about it because they’re too proud to admit that they made a bad vote and made a mistake, and so they just want this to go away, and I doubt that they’re all that happy that it’s getting the exposure that it is.” Niemerg is more hopeful about his party, telling The Daily Signal, “I know that the Republican caucus can unite around this. We’ve had some issues within the Republican caucus trying to get Republicans to unite around the illegal immigration issues. It’s been a little bit of a battle that I’ve been a little bit frustrated with.” He suggested some Democrat legislators might come on board with opposing the policies. “As far as the Democrats go, yes, the moderate Democrats in some swing districts that are not liking some of this policy coming out of Gov. JB Pritzker,” he said. “You have an election cycle coming up for the Democrats in 2026.” Illegal immigrants arresting United States Citizens. This is treasonous. We are working to fully support and assist @DHSgov with help from @Theswampmonitor to get the answers our people deserve. pic.twitter.com/g0XnJRYS9e— Illinois Freedom Caucus ?? (@ILFreedomCaucus) December 4, 2025 When contacted, the Hanover Park Police Department directed The Daily Signal to reach Deputy Chief Victor DiVito, who did not respond to voicemail messages. However, the department previously told reporters, “Given that [Bojovic’s] bond was not contested and he remains authorized to work by the federal government, the Hanover Park Police Department determined that he may return to work.” “The bottom line is that all information we received from the federal government indicated that Officer Bojovic is legally authorized to work in the United States as a police officer. Clearly, without that authorization, the Village would not have hired him,” the department said. “Additionally, the Village has not received any notice from any federal or state agency that his work authorization status has ever been revoked.” The Daily Signal contacted the office of Illinois Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Tony McCombie for response to the Freedom Caucus members’ remarks on the party at large but did not receive a response. The post Illinois Reps Outraged Over ICE-Arrested Cop Back on Duty appeared first on The Daily Signal.