Judge Rules Trump Admin Can Use Taxpayer Info for Immigration Enforcement

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the IRS can share information about taxpayers with U.S. immigration officials. The judge did this despite a request for an injunction that said the Trump administration was using the sensitive information to “illegally identify the location of targets for immigration enforcement.”

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said there was no proof that the IRS information would be used for anything other than targeting people who are being investigated for crimes, as the Department of Homeland Security said it would be.

Friedrich wrote in a memorandum opinion and order, “The Court agrees that asking for and receiving information for civil enforcement purposes would constitute a cognisable injury. However, none of the organisations have established that such an injury is imminent.”

“The plaintiffs agree that the Memorandum only lets people share information for criminal investigations,” she said. “The Court can’t assume that DHS wants to use the shared information to help with civil cases instead of criminal ones.”

Immigration rights groups have sued Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the IRS, and DHS over the sharing of tax information. Friedrich’s decision comes at the same time. Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, and Inclusive Action for the City are some of the groups that have filed a lawsuit.

“This case comes down to a simple legal question: Does the Memorandum of Understanding between the IRS and DHS break the Internal Revenue Code?” Friedrich wrote. “It doesn’t.”

Immigrant groups have said in the past that if the IRS “illegally disclosed” taxpayer information to law enforcement, it would “irreparably destroy the confidence” that taxpaying immigrant workers have put in the IRS’s “prior assurances that their personal information would be protected.”

The information supposedly has the names of immigrant taxpayers from the tax returns they have filed with the IRS. According to the groups, DHS has asked for information on about 700,000 people.

The assistant secretary of public affairs for DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, told Fox News on Monday that the information being shared is important because it helps to “find what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralise them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and find out what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.”