Judge prohibits the IRS from exchanging immigrant information with ICE aimed at deporting them
A judge's ruling will halt the Internal Revenue Service's planned data exchange with ICE officials
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a judge for the District of Columbia, prohibited the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from exchanging any type of information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at deporting foreigners lacking legal status living in the United States.
In a 94-page ruling regarding a lawsuit filed by the Center for Taxpayer Rights, along with other groups, against the IRS, the New York judge deemed the transfer of data that exposes immigrants "illegal."
In her view, there was a "substantial likelihood" that the information-sharing agreement with ICE violated provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, which implied going against the IRS's "strict confidentiality policy," hence the decision to prohibit it.
"The plaintiffs have shown that the IRS's disclosure of confidential taxpayer address information to ICE was contrary to law," Judge Kollar-Kotelly stated.
Earlier this year, ICE officials requested more than 1.2 million records from the IRS containing, among other data, the addresses of these taxpayers and their birthdates. birth records, fingerprint identification numbers.
The controversial aspect of the matter is that more than 47,000 of those records matched profiles of people wanted as immigrants subject to possible deportation.
It should be noted that the law establishes that the tax agency can share personal data for federal criminal investigations or proceedings, as long as it has obtained the approval of a court or the head of the agency.
In this sense, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's ruling will prevent ICE from accessing the requested information, which complicates its strategy to send back foreigners considered to pose a risk to national security.
Regarding this, Skye Perryman,The executive director of Democracy Forward—a non-profit organization that promotes the protection of democracy in the United States—issued a statement calling the ruling a blow against illegality. “This is a major victory for millions of people in the United States whose information has been threatened by the Trump-Vance administration, and it represents the first court order against this illegal data sharing. Paying taxes does not mean giving up the right to privacy,” she said.