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How long does it take ICE to verify a detainee's citizenship status in 2025?
Executive Summary
ICE and USCIS use the SAVE system to check detainees’ citizenship; an initial automated response typically arrives within seconds, but when SAVE requires a manual review the government’s stated additional processing time in 2025 is about 11 federal workdays. Other federal vetting processes cited in government materials are longer (45–60 days) but apply to personnel background investigations, not detainee SAVE checks; practical experience and case complexity can extend total resolution beyond the SAVE metric.
1. How the government says verification works — instant answers, longer when human review is needed
USCIS documentation describes SAVE as an automated verification service that returns an initial response within seconds in most cases, reflecting a machine-to-machine match against federal immigration records; that fast response is the norm when the submitted identifiers match database records neatly [1]. USCIS warns that if SAVE cannot resolve the case automatically, the agency must perform an expanded verification or a manual review with an immigration enumerator, which takes additional time and can require the submitting agency to refile corrected data or provide supplemental documentation [1]. The published operational guidance therefore creates a two-tier expectation: near-instant verification for routine, clean data submissions, and longer, human-mediated processing when records are incomplete, ambiguous, or conflicting [1].
2. The government’s published benchmark in 2025 — the 11 federal workday figure
USCIS’s separate SAVE response-time guidance updated in 2025 sets an approximate additional processing target of 11 federal workdays for cases that require manual review beyond the initial automated response [2]. That figure is framed as an average or target for the supplemental workflow, not a guaranteed cap; it reflects the time needed for clerical or adjudicative tasks, inter-agency checks, and any document retrieval. The guidance also emphasizes that many requests never hit that queue because most are resolved instantly, so the 11-workday metric describes the additional burden when automation fails, rather than a default wait time for all detainees [2].
3. What other federal timelines tell us — personnel checks vs. detainee verification
Separate federal materials about personnel vetting put typical background investigations in a 45–60 day window, but those products concern security clearances and employment suitability rather than immigration-status verification for detainees [3]. Citing those timelines as if they applied to SAVE would conflate different processes: SAVE is a database verification service built to give quick adjudicative cues, whereas NBIS and background-investigation workflows are comprehensive probes including interviews and records checks that naturally take much longer [4] [3]. Analysts and practitioners should therefore treat the 45–60 day personnel timelines as context for federal review capacity, not as a direct substitute for SAVE’s published response expectations [3].
4. Practical variability — why individual cases can take much longer
Even with an 11-workday manual-review benchmark, real cases can stretch longer because of errors, missing documentation, complex legal status questions, or records located overseas. USCIS guidance explicitly advises using best practices—accurate identifiers, current names, and complete supporting documents—to minimize delays, underscoring that avoidable data problems are a major driver of extended processing [2]. Where detainees claim derivative or acquired citizenship, or where foreign records must be obtained or authenticated, adjudicators and immigration judges may need additional time to evaluate evidence; therefore case complexity and document retrieval often exceed the administrative response-time figure [5].
5. The broader implications — detention outcomes and administrative limits
The distinction between an instant SAVE “no-match” or “match” and the later manual adjudication matters for detention and removal proceedings: a swift automated match can end proceedings quickly, while prolonged manual review can leave a detainee in custody pending verification. USCIS expansion of SAVE-like verification uses (for example, voter-related checks) highlights concerns about accuracy and downstream impacts when automation misclassifies citizenship status, reinforcing why manual reviews exist but also why they can become bottlenecks [6]. Stakeholders seeking faster resolution should focus on improving data quality at intake and ensuring timely access to identifying documents to reduce reliance on protracted manual processes [1] [2].