IRS-ICE Immigrant Data Sharing Agreement Betrays Data Privacy and Taxpayers’ Trust

<

div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”>

<

div class=”field__items”>

<

div class=”field__item even”>

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently reached an agreement allowing the IRS to share with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taxpayer information of certain immigrants. The redacted 15-page memorandum of understanding (MOU) was exposed in a court case, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent, which seeks to prevent the IRS from unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information for immigration enforcement purposes. Weaponizing government data vital to the functioning and funding of public goods and services by repurposing it for law enforcement and surveillance is an affront to a democratic society. In addition to the human rights abuses this data-sharing agreement empowers, this move threatens to erode trust in public institutions in ways that could bear consequences for decades. 

Specifically, the government justifies the MOU by citing Executive Order 14161, which was issued on January 20, 2025. The Executive Order directs the heads of several agencies, including DHS, to identify and remove individuals unlawfully present in the country. Making several leaps, the MOU states that DHS has identified “numerous” individuals who are unlawfully present and have final orders of removal, and that each of these individuals is “under criminal investigation” for violation of federal law—namely, “failure to depart” the country under 8 U.S.C. § 1253(a)(1). The MOU uses t

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.