League of Women Voters v. DHS

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT ____________ No. 26-5243 September Term, 2026 1:25-cv-03501-SLS Filed On: September 4, 2026 League of Women Voters, et al., Appellees v. United States Department of Homeland Security, et al., Appellants State of Texas, Appellee ------------------------------ Consolidated with 26-5301 BEFORE: Srinivasan, Chief Judge, and Wilkins and Katsas*, Circuit Judges ORDER Upon consideration of the emergency motion for stay pending appeal, which includes a request for an administrative stay, the response thereto, and the reply; the motions to participate as amici curiae and the lodged amicus briefs; and the Rule 28(j) letters, it is ORDERED that the motions to participate as amici curiae be granted. The Clerk is directed to file the lodged briefs. It is FURTHER ORDERED that the motion for stay be denied. For the reasons discussed in the attached per curiam statement, appellants have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009); D.C. Circuit Handbook of Practice and Internal Procedures 33 (2025). It is * Circuit Judge Katsas would grant the motion for stay pending appeal for the reasons discussed in the attached dissenting statement.  United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT ____________ No. 26-5243 September Term, 2026 FURTHER ORDERED that the request for an administrative stay be dismissed as moot. It is FURTHER ORDERED, on the court’s own motion, that these consolidated appeals be expedited and that, within 10 days of the date of this order, the parties submit a proposed expedited schedule and proposed formats for the briefing of these cases. Per Curiam FOR THE COURT: Clifton B. Cislak, Clerk BY: /s/ Francis A. Walter Deputy Clerk Page 2  PER CURIAM: A stay pending appeal is “extraordinary relief.” Citizens for Resp. & Ethics in Washington (CREW) v. FEC, 904 F.3d 1014, 1017 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam). To obtain its requested stay, the government therefore must make, among other things, a “strong showing that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits” of its appeal. Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009) (citation omitted). Here, the government faces a further obstacle. Only after the district court had already granted summary judgment for plaintiffs did the government raise what are now its central arguments regarding plaintiffs’ Social Security Act claim. When the government first aired those forfeited arguments in moving for a stay pending appeal, the district court declined to consider them in that expedited posture but expressly invited the government to submit a post-judgment motion to excuse the forfeiture and receive full consideration of the late-raised arguments. The government did not do so, instead coming straight to our court and seeking a stay pending appeal based in significant part on the forfeited arguments. To grant the extraordinary relief of a stay, we would need to elect to excuse the government’s forfeiture for purposes of this preliminary stage of the proceedings and then conclude that there is a strong showing that the forfeited arguments—yet to be considered on the merits by any court—are likely to succeed in this appeal. We decline to overlook the forfeiture for purposes of the government’s stay motion; and at any rate, even considering the forfeited arguments as they are presented in the necessarily constrained context of an expedited stay motion, we cannot conclude that the government has made the requisite strong showing of a likelihood of success. We therefore deny the government’s motion.  2 I. A. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE, is an immigration- and citizenship- verification system administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress created SAVE in 1986, directing DHS’s predecessor to establish an automated means of verifying the immigration status of noncitizens applying for certain public benefits. See Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-603, § 121(c)(1), 100 Stat. 3359, 3391; 42 U.S.C. § 1320b-7(d); Gov’t Mot. 2–3. For nearly four decades, SAVE principally searched DHS’s own immigration records. An agency generally submitted a request about a specific individual using a DHS identifier for the person, such as an alien registration number. SAVE returned citizenship or immigration-status information, and the requesting agency made any ultimate eligibility determination. See 42 U.S.C. § 1320b-7(d)(5)(A); Gov’t Mot. 3–4. The system ordinarily could not verify the citizenship of a person born in the U.S. (about whom DHS would have no immigration records), it could not be searched using a Social Security number (SSN), and it could not accept bulk queries encompassing multiple persons. Gov’t Mot. 4–5. That changed as a result of modifications to SAVE implemented in 2025. In March of that year, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing DHS to ensure that state and local election officials had “access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered.” Exec. Order No. 14,248, § 2(b)(i), 90 Fed. Reg. 14005, 14006 (Mar. 25, 2025). The order also directed the Social Security Administration (SSA) to make its Social Security Number  3 Verification Service, Death Master File, and other relevant federal databases available for that purpose. Id. § 3(a), 90 Fed. Reg. at 14007. DHS soon announced the new system at issue here, which we, like the district court and the parties, will call “modified SAVE.” The new system differed from its predecessor version in three principal respects: (i) it connected SAVE to SSA records and permitted searches using full or partial SSNs; (ii) that connection allowed SAVE to return information about persons—including many U.S.-born citizens—who had no DHS immigration records; and (iii) the system permitted bulk queries. Gov’t Mot. 5–6; DHS Administrative Record (DHS AR) 115–17. The information exchange under modified SAVE generally works in relevant respects as follows. Using a web interface, a requesting agency—for example, a state or local government—can access the SAVE system and initiate a request about a person or group of persons. The requester provides the names, dates of birth, full or partial SSNs, and other available identifying information for each person encompassed by the query. DHS then sends those data to SSA. SSA compares the submitted information with its own records and generates separate true-or-false match indicators for the SSN, name, and date of birth for each person. SSA returns a file to DHS containing the match results, as well as yes-or-no indicators capturing whether queried individuals are citizens, deceased, or foreign-born, and other data fields that indicate state or country of birth and alien registration number if applicable and available. If the requester provided only a partial SSN and SSA nonetheless identified a match in its own records, SSA shares the associated full (nine-digit) SSN with DHS for DHS’s own records. SSA also sends any error code descriptions associated with errors incurred during SSA’s search. Gov’t Mot. 6; DHS AR 116, 224–26, 424, 437–38.  4 DHS then makes the results available to the requesting agency through the SAVE web interface. For each person encompassed by the query, the SAVE results report the name, SSN, date of birth, and other identifying information contained in the request, alongside search results. The search results may include an indicator of citizenship or immigration status, an indicator capturing whether the individual is deceased, and descriptions of errors generated by the search process. As to the latter, if, for example, a requesting agency submitted only a partial SSN and SSA was unable to identify a match in its records, SAVE says “Full SSN Required – Resubmit with Additional Information.” With respect to a person’s citizenship, if SAVE does not provide confirmation that the person is a U.S. citizen, SAVE may instruct the requesting agency to contact the individual, who may then be asked for proof of citizenship. SAVE users can review the results for each person one by one or can download a bulk file containing the composite results for all individuals in a query. The time to produce SAVE results can vary from a matter of seconds to a number of days depending on the complexity of the query and the need for human involvement. Gov’t Mot. 6–7; DHS AR 762, 1379, 1443–44, 1507–08, 1525–26. B. Plaintiffs include the League of Women Voters (the League), several state League affiliates, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and individual citizens. In September 2025, plaintiffs filed this action challenging modified SAVE on several grounds, including that DHS and SSA lacked statutory authority for the new system and that its implementation violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court initially denied preliminary relief on the ground that plaintiffs had not shown irreparable harm. League  5 of Women Voters v. DHS, No. 25-cv-3501, 2025 WL 3198970, at *5 (D.D.C. Nov. 17, 2025). The parties then fully briefed the merits. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment, and the government cross-moved to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment. See Pls.’ Summ. J. Mot., Dkt. 66-1; Fed. Defs.’ Mot., Dkt. 77-1; Pls.’ Reply & Opp., Dkt. 99; Fed. Defs.’ Reply, Dkt. 106. On June 22, 2026, the district court granted plaintiffs summary judgment. League of Women Voters, 2026 WL 1784297, at *35. The court held that plaintiffs had standing, that DHS lacked statutory authority to implement modified SAVE, that the system violated the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, and that its adoption was arbitrary and capricious. Id. at *11–18, *20–33; Add. 25–70. The court set aside modified SAVE, along with two Systems of Records Notices issued by DHS and SSA that described the new uses of their records. League of Women Voters, 2026 WL 1784297, at *35; Add. 76–77. The government appealed and asked the district court to stay its decision pending the appeal. In the stay motion, the government presented entirely new arguments concerning plaintiffs’ claim under the Social Security Act. That claim rests on a confidentiality mandate established by 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I), which generally bars disclosure of SSNs “and related records that are obtained or maintained . . . pursuant to any provision of law enacted on or after October 1, 1990.” Plaintiffs had also argued that the same sharing of information independently violated another provision of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1306(a)(1). The district court did not reach that alternative theory because it concluded that the government had offered no response under the terms of § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I).  6 Throughout the months-long summary-judgment proceedings, the government never made an argument under the terms of § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I)’s confidentiality mandate. That is, the government never argued that, to the extent the provision’s confidentiality mandate applies, modified SAVE is consistent with it. See Add. 94–97. Instead, the government argued only that § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I) does not apply in the first place because other immigration statutes—chiefly, 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c)—specifically authorize the disclosures brought about by modified SAVE. See Fed. Defs.’ Mot. 49– 50; Add. 94–97. Then, after the district court granted summary judgment for plaintiffs on the Social Security Act claim, the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal for the first time engaged with the substance of § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I)’s confidentiality mandate. Only then did the government argue that, to the extent modified SAVE discloses any information at all, any such disclosures are consistent with § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I). Add. 94–97. The district court held those new arguments forfeited. Add. 94–98. It emphasized that the government’s new theories implicated two relevant transfers of information in response to a SAVE query: SSA’s initial transmission of responsive information to DHS, and DHS’s ensuing transmission of information to the initial SAVE requester. The court explained that the forfeited arguments could require renewed examination of the administrative record and additional factual determinations about what is communicated at each step. Add. 95–97. The court declined to take up the forfeited arguments “in an expedited fashion” in the context of “a stay motion,” but it expressly invited the government to ask it to excuse the forfeiture and engage with the arguments through a postjudgment motion, “where they can receive adequate and thorough consideration.” Add. 98 n.3. The government did  7 not take up the district court’s invitation, instead filing the present motion in this court for a stay pending appeal. II. In attempting to satisfy its burden to make a strong showing of a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, the government initially argues that plaintiffs lack standing. The government has not shown the requisite likelihood of success on that argument. The League has associational standing if one member would have standing in her own right, the interests it seeks to protect are germane to its purpose, and neither the claim nor the requested relief requires an individual member’s participation. Institutional S’holder Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 142 F.4th 757, 764 (D.C. Cir. 2025). Only the first requirement is disputed. And because the League seeks prospective relief, the question is whether at least one member faces an ongoing or sufficiently imminent injury. At least two do. J. Doe 4 is a League member and U.S. citizen who lives in Louisiana, which has agreed to use modified SAVE for voter-list maintenance. J. Doe 4 Suppl. Decl. ¶¶ 1–2, 5, 13, Dkt. 16-3. Doe applied for an SSN while a noncitizen, later became a U.S. citizen, and states in a sworn declaration that SSA’s records continue to list them as a noncitizen. Id. ¶¶ 2, 8, 14. J. Doe 6 is likewise a League member and U.S. citizen who lives in Virginia, where election officials have agreed to use modified SAVE for voter-list maintenance. J. Doe 6 Decl. ¶¶ 1–2, 5, 14, Dkt. 16–8. J. Doe 6 likewise applied for an SSN before naturalizing and states that SSA’s records continue to list them as a noncitizen. Id. ¶¶ 2, 9, 15. While SSA does not require individuals to update their records when their citizenship status changes (since such a change would not necessarily affect eligibility for related  8 benefits), J. Doe 6 nonetheless tried unsuccessfully to update their SSA citizenship data before the November 2025 elections. Id. ¶ 15. If modified SAVE were used to obtain information about them, the inaccurate SSA records for J. Doe 4 and J. Doe 6 would likely produce a SAVE record that fails to confirm their citizenship. What would then presumably follow would count as injury for standing purposes. DHS instructs election officials receiving such a response to obtain proof of citizenship from the voter. DHS AR 762. And President Trump has “directed” states to remove all ineligible voters from their rolls “immediately.” White House, President Trump Delivers an Address to the Nation, at 39:36–39:46 (YouTube, July 16, 2026), https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iIlqG0untYM. If a person needs to prove their citizenship to remain registered to vote or if they are removed from the registration rolls, they suffer a cognizable injury. See Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 475 (1987). The agencies themselves have made clear that the threatened injury J. Doe 4 and J. Doe 6 describe is far from speculative. DHS warned that “[s]hortfalls in data accuracy” in SSA citizenship data could produce “incomplete or false results.” DHS AR 260, 302; see also DHS AR 240. SSA likewise cautioned that its citizenship information is accurate “for SSA’s program purposes,” but “if used later for other purposes, it may not be current.” SSA Administrative Record (SSA AR) 103; see also SSA AR 44. The implementation of modified SAVE in Texas shows how the dynamic can materialize in practice. When modified SAVE produced adverse results for Texas League members whom federal records misclassified as noncitizens, state officials required them to prove their citizenship and, in some cases, cancelled their registrations. See Nel Decl. ¶¶ 19–21, 24, 26 & Exs. 1, 2, Dkt. 66-3; A. Doe Decl. ¶¶ 11–14 & Ex. 1, Dkt. 66-4; B. Doe  9 Decl. ¶¶ 11–17, 21–22, 24–27, 30–31 & Exs. 1, 2, Dkt. 66-5; C. Doe Decl. ¶¶ 12–14, 18 & Ex. 1, Dkt. 66-6. That experience, together with J. Doe 4’s and J. Doe 6’s out-of-date federal records and their own states’ planned use of modified SAVE, makes injury sufficiently likely to establish their standing. See Jibril v. Mayorkas, 20 F.4th 804, 814 (D.C. Cir. 2021). Contrary to the government’s argument, the intervening role of state officials does not defeat causation. An injury remains fairly traceable to federal action when third parties “will likely react” to it “in predictable ways.” Diamond Alt. Energy, LLC v. EPA, 606 U.S. 100, 112 (2025) (cleaned up). The sequence of events in Texas illustrates that states’ response to an adverse SAVE result is not conjectural—after all, the states wanting to use modified SAVE to conduct citizenship checks do so because they expect its result to inform their eligibility determinations. And the threatened injuries are fairly traceable and redressable because setting aside modified SAVE removes the federal response that sets the process in motion. The government thus has not shown that it is likely to succeed in challenging plaintiffs’ standing. III. Nor has the government made the requisite strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal. The district court’s grant of summary judgment against the government on plaintiffs’ Social Security Act claim independently supports its judgment. As to that claim, the central arguments the government now advances in its stay motion were forfeited before the district court. We decline to excuse that forfeiture for purposes of considering the government’s preliminary request for an interim stay, regardless of whether the forfeiture might ultimately be overcome when the government’s appeal is considered on the merits after the full briefing attending that stage. And at any  10 rate, even if we consider the government’s forfeited arguments in this posture, the government still does not make the requisite strong showing of a likelihood of success on those new arguments as currently presented. A. The Social Security Act’s relevant confidentiality mandate provides: Social security account numbers and related records that are obtained or maintained by authorized persons pursuant to any provision of law enacted on or after October 1, 1990, shall be confidential, and no authorized person shall disclose any such social security account number or related record. 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I). A “social security account number” is an SSN, and a “related record” is “any record, list, or compilation that indicates, directly or indirectly, the identity of any individual with respect to whom a social security account number or a request for a social security account number is maintained.” Id. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(IV). There is no dispute that the confidentiality mandate’s disclosure prohibition applies not only to the transmission of information from within the federal government to outside it (e.g., DHS to a SAVE user) but also from one federal agency to another (e.g., SSA to DHS). 1. Plaintiffs contend that modified SAVE violates § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I). In moving for summary judgment on that claim and in defending against plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, the government offered two responses. Neither  11 disputed plaintiffs’ argument that, insofar as § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I) applies to modified SAVE, the program violates the provision’s confidentiality mandate. The government instead argued only that plaintiffs lack a cause of action to assert a violation of § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I) and that other statutes in any event provide the requisite authorization for modified SAVE’s information sharing. Fed. Defs.’ Mot. 49–50. The district court rejected both of those arguments (the first of which the government no longer presses). League of Women Voters, 2026 WL 1784297, at *20, *30–33. The government, as explained, first raised arguments under the terms of § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I) only after the district court entered judgment. Add. 94–97. Although the district court deemed the arguments forfeited, the government now relies on them as the central basis of its challenge to the district court’s ruling on the Social Security Act claim. Gov’t Mot. 15–17. The government’s stay motion thus asks us to doubly exercise discretion in its favor. First, a stay pending appeal is “not a matter of right”; it is an “exercise of judicial discretion” governed by equitable principles, Nken, 556 U.S. at 433–34 (citations omitted), and is relief we have correspondingly termed “extraordinary,” CREW, 904 F.3d at 1017. Second, consideration of an argument forfeited in the district court is also not a matter of right. See Flynn v. Comm’r, 269 F.3d 1064, 1068–69 (D.C. Cir. 2001). The usual rule is that a forfeited argument will not be considered on appeal at all, Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. 162, 173 (2016); OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs, 577 U.S. 27, 38 (2015), much less considered as the central ground for a stay pending appeal, see Ohio v. EPA, 603 U.S. 279, 298–99 (2024). In that regard, when considering whether to grant a stay pending appeal, we ordinarily assess whether a party is likely to succeed in appealing the district court’s rejection of an argument that was thoroughly examined based on full  12 development through meaningful adversarial testing. A forfeited argument does not come to us with the benefit of that sort of exploration by either the parties or the district court. Of course, our court still might decide in unusual circumstances to consider a forfeited argument after full merits briefing and argument. But it is another matter altogether to rely on the same forfeited argument to grant discretionary interim relief pending the appeal at an expedited preliminary stage, without the benefit of meaningful development in full merits briefing. See Nken, 556 U.S. at 433–34; McBride v. Merrell Dow & Pharms., Inc., 800 F.2d 1208, 1210–11 (D.C. Cir. 1986). The concerns animating forfeiture principles—that late-raised arguments create “the risk of an improvident or ill-advised opinion” by denying courts and parties normal opportunities for development, McBride, 800 F.2d at 1210 (citation omitted)—have added force at this threshold stage. Those considerations carry pronounced weight here given the course of the litigation. The government had a full opportunity before the district court’s judgment to raise and develop the theories it now presses. Plaintiffs squarely invoked § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I), Pls.’ Summ. J. Mot. 32–33; the parties briefed the merits of that and other issues over a period of months; and the government not only opposed plaintiffs’ motion but also cross-moved for judgment in its favor. Fed. Defs.’ Mot. The government does not seriously dispute its forfeiture, Gov’t Mot. 17–18, and it does not ask us to find that the district court erred in deeming the arguments forfeited. The district court also, in an unusual gesture, affirmatively invited the government to make use of a second opportunity to gain discretionary consideration of its late-raised arguments. In its denial of the government’s motion for a stay, the district court directed the government to a procedural pathway that would allow it to ask the court to excuse the forfeiture and  13 engage with the new theories in a manner allowing for their full development and consideration. Add. 98 n.3. That course accords with our precedent, which directs a party wishing to gain postjudgment consideration of a new issue to first present it to the district court, often under Rule 59(e) (or potentially under Rule 60(b)(6) when appropriate). City of New York v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 776 F.3d 11, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2015); see Arias v. DynCorp, 752 F.3d 1011, 1016 (D.C. Cir. 2014); Jones v. Horne, 634 F.3d 588, 603 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Here, such a route was still available: a motion of the kind invited by the district court can be filed within 28 days of the judgment, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e); accord Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(b), and the district court extended its invitation when 12 days remained in that period. The government, though, declined to take up the invitation and instead immediately sought relief in this court, forgoing further development and consideration of the forfeited arguments in the district court.* * The district court suggested that the government file a motion under Rule 52(b), Add. 98 n.3, which allows a party to move within 28 days of a judgment for a court to amend or supplement its findings and amend the judgment accordingly; Rule 59(e), relatedly, permits a party within the same period to ask the court directly to alter or amend the judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(b), 59(e). The two rules are routinely invoked together and provide closely related and overlapping forms of postjudgment relief in precisely the same timeframe. See 9C Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2582 (3d ed. updated Apr. 2026); Nat’l Metal Finishing Co. v. BarclaysAmerican/Com., Inc., 899 F.2d 119, 122 (1st Cir. 1990) (describing “the close relationship between Rule 59(e) and Rule 52(b)” and the relief available under them as “so similar”). Whatever the precise procedural vehicle—Rule 52(b), Rule 59(e), or both—the district court expressly offered and essentially encouraged the government to ask the court to exercise its discretion to grant first-instance, “adequate and thorough consideration” of the late-raised arguments. Add. 98 n.3.  14 Granted, we retain “independent power to identify and apply the proper construction of governing law.” Kamen v. Kemper Fin. Servs., Inc., 500 U.S. 90, 99 (1991). But our “respect for the district judges,” among other considerations, favors giving the court that entered judgment the first opportunity to consider, develop, and resolve a late-raised issue that might call for adjusting the court’s result. City of New York, 776 F.3d at 17. And in the circumstances of this case, as the district court explained, the new theories could require further factual development in that court: an informed consideration of the new arguments could turn in part on what information passes from SSA to DHS, what information later passes from DHS to SAVE users, and what the system’s matching and confirmation responses communicate. Add. 95– 97. De novo review of the ultimate statutory question does not eliminate the need for an adequately developed factual account of the system to which the statute applies. Courts of appeals “do not sit as self-directed boards of legal inquiry and research” into such matters. Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171, 177 (D.C. Cir. 1983). In asking us to overlook its forfeiture, the government submits that “[i]t would be extraordinary to use this unusual litigation history to justify precluding millions of verifications” through modified SAVE. Gov’t Mot. 18. But the government makes that appeal in the context of asking us to grant it the “extraordinary relief” of a stay pending appeal. CREW, 904 F.3d at 1017. And it would be all the more out-of-the-ordinary to grant that extraordinary relief on the basis of forfeited arguments: the government does not identify any case in which a court has granted a stay pending appeal based on a likelihood of ultimate success as to forfeited (and hence underdeveloped) arguments.  15 The asserted interests of states that rely on SAVE, see Dissent 11, do not warrant departing from ordinary forfeiture principles either. The consequences of a party’s litigation choices often—indeed, nearly always—extend beyond the party itself. Those downstream interests also run in both directions here, and nothing in this preliminary stay posture necessarily calls for allocating the risk of error to citizens eligible to vote who may be burdened by inaccurate modified- SAVE results rather than to states temporarily unable to use modified SAVE’s new functionality. If such downstream effects sufficed to excuse forfeiture, ordinary forfeiture principles could give way whenever—as may often be the case—government action affects nonparties. Nor does that description fit every state invoking those interests: Texas intervened as a defendant to protect its interests in modified SAVE and independently briefed the Social Security Act claim, yet it too did not advance the specific late-raised theories on which the government now principally relies. See Order Granting Tex. Mot. to Intervene 1, Dkt. 86; Tex. Mot. to Dismiss 26, Dkt. 97. Here, moreover, the statutory obligations the states invoke—determining eligibility for various benefits and maintaining accurate voter rolls—long predate modified SAVE’s introduction in 2025. For decades, states carried out those duties using the preexisting SAVE system and other available means. The district court’s judgment requires only that they return to those long-used methods while an appeal determines whether modified SAVE is lawful. Whatever advantages modified SAVE’s functions afford, the question at this stage is limited to their interim unavailability during the appeal. The significance of the issues in this appeal to the public at large does not dictate a contrary conclusion. In a related  16 context, we have declined to consider an argument raised only in a limited fashion by a party even where—and indeed, especially because—“important questions of far-reaching significance are involved.” Carducci, 714 F.2d at 177 (internal quotation marks omitted). And the Supreme Court, when considering an emergency stay application involving a major federal regulatory program, declined to consider a theory advanced by the dissent rather than the government itself in opposing the stay: “if the government had arguments along these lines,” the Court emphasized, “it did not make them” despite its “ample resources and voluminous briefing”—and the Court in that context thought that “sticking to [its] normal course of declining to consider forfeited arguments [was] the right course.” Ohio v. EPA, 603 U.S. 279, 298–99 (2024). We similarly adhere to that course here. We are unpersuaded to do otherwise based on the parallel proceedings pertaining to modified SAVE in the Northern District of Florida. Several states there entered into a settlement with DHS requiring, among other things, access to modified SAVE’s SSN-search and bulk-upload functionality. After the district court here set aside modified SAVE, the Florida court enforced the parties’ settlement there and ordered DHS to restore those functions for the plaintiff states. See Florida v. DHS, No. 3:24-cv-509, Dkt. 45, at 5–9 (N.D. Fla. July 7, 2026); Add. 105–12. It is far from clear that the two proceedings present conflicting legal determinations. The district court here adjudicated plaintiffs’ claims on the merits; the Florida court, by contrast, enforced a settlement DHS voluntarily entered while this litigation was already pending. The Florida court did not—and, by nature of the proceeding, could not—address the substance of the claims presented here. The fate of the Florida court’s enforcement order also is uncertain as it is presently on  17 appeal in the Eleventh Circuit. And questions about the effect of the district court’s judgment here on the Florida proceedings are being litigated in the Eleventh Circuit appeal. The government, meanwhile, has not sought to reduce any practical tension raised by its obligations in the two cases by arguing here that the district court’s relief is too broad; and the mere existence of parallel proceedings—even assuming the orders in fact conflict—does not itself suggest which order, if either, should yield. Indeed, the state parties there have themselves opposed expedition, arguing that the appeal presents “many novel and complex questions” and urging that both appeals proceed “in the ordinary course.” State Appellees’ Opp. to Mot. to Expedite 1–2, 13, Florida v. League of Women Voters, No. 26-12533 (11th Cir. July 28, 2026). Those circumstances provide limited reason to depart from ordinary forfeiture principles here. We therefore decline to take the highly unusual step of considering the government’s forfeited arguments at this preliminary stage. A subsequent merits panel remains free to decide for itself whether to entertain the arguments after full appellate briefing. And in any event, as we explain below, even if we consider the government’s forfeited arguments at this stage on the present record, the government fails to make the required strong showing of a likelihood of success. 2. Before taking up the government’s forfeited arguments in the alternative, we first explain why the government does not make a strong showing of a likelihood of success if we confine our consideration to the sole properly preserved argument the government now presses on the Social Security Act claim. Fed. Defs.’ Mot. 44–50. That argument is one the government advances only as a fallback matter. Gov’t Mot. 17. It rests on  18 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c), which generally requires DHS to respond to state and local inquiries seeking citizenship or immigration- status information. That provision does not establish a likelihood of success for the government. A general duty to answer a citizenship inquiry under 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c) does not by itself authorize disclosure of information that another statute, 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I), specifically makes confidential. The two commands can readily coexist and function together: DHS may answer the inquiries Congress calls for it to answer while still complying with a separate restriction on the disclosure of specific information Congress deemed confidential. See League of Women Voters, 2026 WL 1784297, at *30–33. Congress’s treatment of employment verification in the same 1996 legislation that enacted § 1373(c) reinforces that conclusion. Congress expressly authorized SSA to participate in an employment-verification system by matching names and SSNs against its records; specified what information SSA could return; and restricted how that information could be used. See Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-208, § 404(e), (h), 110 Stat. 3009- 546, 3009-665 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1324a note). Section 1373(c) contains no comparable reference to SSA records, SSN matching, or the Social Security Act’s confidentiality rule. Congress thus knew how to authorize SSN matching, and it expressly did so elsewhere in the same statute. We see little basis to read § 1373(c)’s general instruction to answer citizenship inquiries as both silently accomplishing the same thing and silently displacing an otherwise applicable confidentiality restriction. Once the forfeited theories are removed from consideration per the usual rule attending forfeiture, then, the government is left with no preserved argument in its stay  19 motion that independently makes a strong showing that it is likely to defeat the Social Security Act claim. That itself warrants denying the government’s stay motion because we would decline to consider the forfeited arguments at this stage for the reasons explained. We nevertheless next take up those forfeited theories in the alternative and explain why the government still does not carry its burden. B. The government’s forfeited theories, even if considered, do not make the requisite strong showing of a likelihood of success. Recall the terms of the Social Security Act’s relevant confidentiality mandate: “Social security account numbers and related records that are obtained or maintained by authorized persons pursuant to any provision of law enacted on or after October 1, 1990, shall be confidential, and no authorized person shall disclose any such social security account number or related record.” 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I). In its forfeited arguments, the government posits two theories under that provision’s terms: (i) that the information conveyed under modified SAVE is “obtained or maintained” “pursuant to . . . law[s] enacted” before “October 1, 1990”; and (ii) that regardless, modified SAVE does not involve “disclos[ure]” of a “social security account number or related record.” Id. Those new arguments implicate unresolved legal questions whose factual premises are incompletely developed in the available briefing and record. And since the government raised those arguments too late to enable their full development in (and full consideration by) the district court—and since the government in any event bears the burden to justify the extraordinary interim relief it seeks—any uncertainties resulting from the arguments’ inadequate development at this stage weigh against the granting of relief. Considered in that light, neither of the government’s new theories, at least as  20 presently constituted, makes the requisite showing of a strong likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal. 1. The government first argues that the confidentiality provision’s temporal limitation excludes the records implicated by modified SAVE. Gov’t Mot. 15–16. Section 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I) pro