February 27, 2026
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in her decision that the agency violated IRS Code 6103, which is reportedly one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statutes.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential taxpayer information approximately 43,695 times to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the IRS erroneously shared the taxpayer information of people with the Department of Homeland Security and immigration officials as part of a controversial agreement to share information on immigrants under the Trump administration’s priority to deport people here illegally in the United States.
According to the Associated Press, the judge’s finding was based on a declaration filed by Dottie Romo, the IRS’s chief risk and control officer. The declaration revealed that the IRS provided DHS officials with information on approximately 47,000 of the 1.28 million people that ICE requested. In most cases, ICE provided additional address information in violation of privacy rules intended to protect taxpayer data.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly said in her decision that the agency violated IRS Code 6103, which is reportedly one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statutes.
“The IRS not only failed to ensure that ICE’s request for confidential taxpayer address information met the statutory requirements, but this failure led the IRS to disclose confidential taxpayer addresses to ICE in situations where ICE’s request for that information was patently deficient,” she wrote.
IRS and DHS Enter Immigration Agreement Using Taxpayer Information
Last April, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem signed an agreement that would allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants living in the United States illegally. The agencies would cross-verify information against tax records. It was an agreement that led to the resignation of the then-acting IRS commissioner. Several ongoing cases challenge the IRS-DHS agreement.
Those who criticize the agreement face an uphill battle. Earlier this week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to issue a preliminary injunction for an immigrants’ rights group suing the federal government to stop the agreement.
Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote in his ruling that nonprofit groups are “unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims” since the IRS privacy statute doesn’t cover the information the agencies are sharing, WSLS reports.
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