Judge Allows Immigrant Tax Information Sharing Between IRS, DHS

A federal judge Monday denied a bid to block the IRS from sharing immigrants’ taxpayer information with officials at the Department of Homeland Security.

Judge Dabney Friedrich of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said not-for-profit immigrant aid groups Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage hadn’t met their burden to prove that an “unprecedented” agreement between the IRS and DHS to share taxpayer information could break the law, denying a preliminary injunction to stop the agreement that was signed last month.

The two groups were unlikely to establish they had standing to sue, Friedrich said. The IRS had attested that the information sharing agreementwould be used to facilitate criminal enforcement as is allowed under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103.

“At this stage, the plaintiffs have not established that it is likely that IRS disclosures will be used to ‘facilitate the civil enforcement of immigration laws,’” in violation of that law, the judge said.

The judge further ordered that the memorandum between the two agencies, which is now public only in redacted form, “be almost entirely unsealed” while the two sides’ briefs would also be unredacted. Friedrich rejected the DHS’s assertion of the law enforcement privilege because the agreement “has been widely discussed.”

In oral arguments April 16, the Chicago-based groups said the government’s new agreement, signed as the Trump administration has cracked down on immigration enforcement, is a violation of Section 6103, which keeps IRS tax information confidential from other branches of government with exceptions for criminal prosecutions. The groups have raised concerns about the possibility that the tax data would be used to aid in deportations.

The government argued it would obey IRC Section 6103, which has several different provisions for the kinds of criminal investigations that would qualify as exceptions to prohibitions on information sharing.

The government furnished a redacted copy of the agreement and opposes releasing an unredacted version to the public, citing law enforcement sensitivity.

Public Citizen Litigation Group, Raise the Floor Alliance, and Alan Morrison with the George Washington University Law School represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00677, 5/12/25.