105 Congress Members Sign Opposition to IRS-DHS Tax Info Sharing

Over 100 members of Congress urged a D.C. federal judge to halt an information sharing agreement between the IRS and Department of Homeland Security that could be used to aid in deportations.

The amicus brief, filed Wednesday and signed by 105 members of Congress, supported a preliminary injunction that would halt the information disclosures, saying that the agreement “could profoundly alter expectations of privacy for taxpayers.”

“This would both directly contravene Congress’s well-considered statutory design of focusing IRS resources on collecting federal tax revenues and constitute an intrusion by the executive branch upon powers reserved by the Constitution for Congress,” the brief said.

The agreement upends decades of precedent that were aimed at preserving privacy of information taxpayers file with the IRS, the brief said. That information should be “highly restricted,” especially because the information it collected was intended for revenue collection rather than policing immigration.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia is considering an injunction requested by two Chicago-area nonprofits that provide education and resources for immigrants, which say that the request for taxpayer information could be used to aid in locating immigrants to aid in deportations and is based on an interpretation of the Tax Code not intended by Congress.

Also filing an amicus brief Wednesday were nonprofit organizations Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee Inc. and Center for Economic Development of Southeastern Massachusetts, which said the agreement “will break decades of promises on which immigrant taxpayers have relied.”

Analyses by Yale University and other institutions show that the disclosures could cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions in tax revenue over the coming decade because nonresidents who paid taxes using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers will be discouraged from providing their information to the government.

The Department of Justice, though, argued that disclosures of IRS information are baked into IRC Section 6103, which keeps IRS tax information confidential from other branches of government, but allows information sharing for purposes of criminal prosecutions.

The two sides filed briefs under seal after viewing complete versions of the IRS-DHS agreement, which is only available to the public in redacted form.

Public Citizen Litigation Group, Raise the Floor Alliance, and Alan Morrison with the George Washington Law School represent the plaintiffs. Public Justice PC represents the members of Congress. The Asian Law Caucus represents the economic nonprofits.

The case is Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent, D.D.C., amicus briefs 4/30/25.