(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Advocates sue to block ICE access to taxpayer data for mass deportation plans [1]
['Ryan Knappenberger']
Date: 2025-04
The advocates warned that over 13 million individuals would be subject to Trump's mass deportation plans if it received access to a taxpayer database that is legally prohibited from being used in immigration enforcement.
WASHINGTON (CN) — A coalition of advocacy groups sued the Treasury Department on Friday to block the release of taxpayer information to facilitate President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.
The Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity Dupage filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and asked U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich to enjoin the Treasury from disclosing the identifiable information to the Department of Homeland Security.
The advocacy groups warned that over 13 million individuals are subject to Trump’s mass deportation plans and would require gaining access to their Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers held by the Internal Revenue Service.
Nandan Joshi, a Public Citizen attorney representing the advocacy groups, said in a statement on Friday that the department’s attempts to access the names and addresses of taxpayers violated long-standing privacy laws.
“Congress enacted taxpayer privacy laws in response to the Nixon administration’s abuse of the IRS tax records for political purposes,” Joshi said. “Taxpayers deserve to know those laws will be respected by every administration, no matter its political agenda.”
Trump campaigned on deporting millions of undocumented immigrants from the country and, since taking office, has made restricting the number of immigrants entering the country — including those entering legally — a core part of his agenda.
He imposed quotas on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to increase arrests from a few hundred each day to 1,200 to 1,500 per day, then began removing top officials at the agency for failure to accelerate deportations.
Further, Trump has characterized all undocumented immigrants in the country as criminals despite the offense of remaining in the country without authorization being a mere civil, not criminal, one.
The disclosure of taxpayers' information would violate the Internal Revenue Code, which specifically forbids the IRS from complying with any requests — even from the president, DHS, ICE or a state — to share tax return information for immigration enforcement purposes.
The statute only allows a president to request an individual’s information via a written request specifying the taxpayer by name — an exception that prevents the president from requesting returns en masse.
Despite those restrictions, ICE has requested the IRS provide addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of 700,000 suspected undocumented immigrants. Former IRS acting Commissioner Doug O’Donnell had refused to comply with the request but has since been replaced with acting administrator Melanie Krause, who is reportedly reviewing the request.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, with more than a third of those payments going toward payroll taxes that fund programs like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance that they are barred from accessing.
In six states, undocumented immigrants paid over $1 billion in taxes, with California raising $8.5 billion, Texas $4.9 billion, New York $3.1 billion, Florida $1.8 billion, Illinois $1.5 billion and New Jersey $1.3 billion.
In 40 states, undocumented immigrants paid higher state and local tax rates than the top 1% of households in the states. The migrants pay more in income taxes than similarly situated American citizens, in part because they are barred from receiving tax credits and regularly don’t claim refunds due to lack of awareness, concerns about immigration status, or a lack of access to tax assistance, according to the institute.
Friday’s lawsuit is the latest legal challenge in Washington to Trump’s immigration moves.
Advocates have sued over the president’s efforts to conduct ICE raids at places of worship, his practice of sending nonviolent detainees to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay and blocking access to relatives or attorneys, and the sudden termination of refugee resettlement programs.
While federal judges in the first two cases in Washington have yet to rule on the challenges, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden denied emergency relief to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to whom the government owes millions in outstanding reimbursement payments for provided resettlement services.
McFadden, a Trump appointee, denied a temporary restraining order that would release the funds, finding that the conference was suffering a financial harm that could be addressed with monetary compensation rather than the sparingly granted emergency relief.
Immigrant advocacy groups have found more success at federal courts across the country, including rulings that Trump’s effort to rescind birthright citizenship was unconstitutional.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.courthousenews.com/advocates-sue-to-block-ice-access-to-taxpayer-data-for-mass-deportation-plans/
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
