IRS Info Sharing for ICE Enforcement Withstands Court Appeal (1)

Immigrant services groups failed again Tuesday in their bid to halt the IRS from sharing taxpayer information with the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement purposes.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that a federal judge properly denied the group of nonprofits a preliminary injunction to halt the agreement under which DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement has requested information on about 1.28 million taxpayers. The lower court sided with the IRS, which argued it would follow the letter of the privacy protections of IRC Section 6103 in implementing the deal.

The case represents a major test in the bounds of IRC Section 6103, which creates onerous requirements for sharing of taxpayer information, even with other branches of government. But it has carve-outs for criminal investigation that the government says justify the information sharing agreement. Even so, government counsel acknowledged in arguments that such an expansive information sharing program is unprecedented.

The immigrant rights groups argue the agreement marks an unprecedented expansion of information sharing within the government in violation of the privacy protections against taxpayer information disclosure.

Writing for the court, Judge Harry T. Edwards said Somos Un Pueblo Unido likely has associational standing to present its contrary-to-law and arbitrary-and-capricious claims on behalf of its members. But he rejected the merits of the group’s case as contrary to the reading of IRC Section 6103(i)(2), finding that the law allows disclosure of address information without a court order.

“In fact, a court order is not mentioned in the provision,” Edwards wrote. “Appellants’ insistence that a court order is required thus has no support in the statute.”

In oral arguments last October, the court appeared to be divided on the legal issues of both the memorandum of understanding between IRS and DHS and the meaning of IRC Section 6103. But they spent little time on the standing issues that caused the US District Court for the District of Columbia to reject both a restraining order and an injunction sought by the plaintiff groups.

In a similar case, a federal district court in Massachusetts earlier this month temporarily blocked the IRS and Treasury Department from sharing taxpayer address information with immigration enforcement authorities because doing so likely violates the privacy provision under Section 6103.

In a separate case in November 2025, the US District Court for the District of Columbia barred the IRS from sharing data on millions of American taxpayers with DHS after determining that taxpayer and labor groups can challenge the practice.

In an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the IRS on Feb. 18 encouraged the court to overturn the injunction despite having recently admitted to mistakenly sharing thousands of immigrants’ personal information.

Judges Sri Srinivasan and Patricia A. Millett joined the opinion.

Raise the Floor Alliance; Public Citizen Litigation Group; and Alan B. Morrison of Washington represent the immigrant services groups.

The case is Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent, D.C. Cir., No. 25-5181, 2/24/26.