WASHINGTON — One day after the federal tax-filing deadline, a nonprofit consumer rights group is heading to court to stop the Internal Revenue Service from sharing immigrants’ personal data with the Department of Homeland Security to help with deportations.
Last week, the acting commissioner of the IRS resigned because of a deal Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to share immigrants’ tax information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We still do not know the key terms of the agreement,” said Nandan Joshi, the lawyer for Public Citizen, which filed the lawsuit against the Treasury secretary, Homeland Security secretary, IRS and DHS on behalf of several immigrant rights groups last month. “At the time we initially filed the lawsuit, the agreement between those two agencies was just threatened. In the last week, we know the threat has become a reality.”
The U.S. DOGE Service, spearheaded by billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk, began an audit of the IRS in February in the name of reducing waste, fraud and abuse, and immediately began seeking access to sensitive taxpayer data. Current tax code requires the IRS to keep taxpayers’ tax return information confidential.
Joshi said the Trump administration recently finalized a memorandum of understanding for the IRS to share taxpayer information with ICE.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the government is finally doing what it should have all along: sharing information across the federal government to solve problems,” a DHS senior official told Spectrum News. “Biden not only allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood into our country — he lost them due to incompetence and improper processing.
"Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, as well as identify what public benefits these aliens are using at the American taxpayer expense.”
The Internal Revenue Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Public Citizen lawsuit.
At Wednesday’s hearing in a district court in Washington, D.C., Public Citizen is requesting a preliminary injunction to stop the IRS from sharing the data. Joshi said the group does not believe the IRS has already given immigrants’ data to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Once that information is out, it will be impossible to bring it back,” Joshi said. “It violates taxpayer privacy in a way that will be irreparable.”
Workers who are undocumented are legally required to pay federal income taxes using individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, because they are not eligible for social security numbers. To obtain an ITIN, undocumented workers need to submit their personal data to the IRS.
“Our clients pay their taxes,” said Kevin Herrera, legal director at Raise the Floor Alliance, a nonprofit that represents low-wage workers in Chicago. “Our communities voluntarily file their tax returns because they’ve been told the IRS will respect their privacy.”
Herrera said the Trump administration has violated their trust in a stable and neutral IRS.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.