IRS to share info with ICE about some undocumented immigrant taxpayers

The Department of Homeland Security has sought to use tax filing information to find people in the U.S. without legal status in support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a court document that the IRS has agreed to share certain tax information filed by undocumented taxpayers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The agreement was announced in a document filed late Monday in a case challenging the legality of the IRS' sharing tax information with other agencies. The document was filed with several key parts blacked out.

"There is an agreement that calls for information sharing, which is a reversal of what IRS said in the past it would not share," said Alan Morrison, an attorney at Georgetown School of Law who is of counsel on the case challenging the lawsuit. The attorneys in the lawsuit are asking DHS to file a clean copy, without redactions.

DHS has sought to use tax filing information to find people in the United States without legal status in support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.

Many people without legal status pay billions in taxes, filing under tax identification numbers. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022. According to its analysis, $59.4 billion went to the federal government and $37.3 billion to state and local governments.