IRS to Share Data with ICE

A few days ago, I chanced upon a  ProPublica article about events at the IRS since Trump assumed the presidency following the 2024 election. Because It’s a story that fits with the purpose of this blog so I wanted to pass it on. Unfortunately, that proved to be quite a problem.

 I struggled to determine how best to present it. I never found a satisfactory answer. So, much of what follows is an awkward combination of exposition and overlong bullet points that reflects a mash-up of my editing and the AI editing of Co-Pilot. It’s a compromise at best. The ordering of the bullet points in each section is not meant to imply a specific time line.

ProPublica, which identifies itself as an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism, reports that the IRS is building a computer program that would provide unprecedented access to confidential tax data to deportation officials “on demand” including the home addresses of those in the system. Pro Publica says it obtained a blueprint for the system.

The writers credited for the original story are William Turton, Cristopher Bing, and Avi Ash-Schapiro.

The Background

  • The push for IRS data access began early in Trump’s presidency
  • The tax agency’s then acting general counsel (not named in the article) refused and was replaced by Andrew De Mello,
  • De Mello was viewed as more willing to carry out the president’s agenda
  • Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, and the IRS negotiated a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) that included legal guardrails to safeguard taxpayers’ information.
  • Acting IRS counsel Andrew De Mello rejected ICE’s request for 7.3 million taxpayer addresses over legal concerns
  • De Mello argued ICE’s broad request lacked required legal assurance that individuals were criminally investigated, calling the scale unrealistic.
  • The conflict over data sharing culminated in De Mello’s removal near the end of June amid internal resistance at IRS to DHS demands
  • DHS cites court validation of the MOU and insists sensitive data will be protected during enforcement actions.

The “Blueprint”

  • The technical blueprint obtained by ProPublica shows that engineers at the agency are preparing to give DHS a system that enables massive, automated data sharing.
  • The goal is to launch the new system before the end of July.
  • Engineers based at IRS offices in Lanham, Maryland and Dallas, Texas are actively developing the system.
  • The technical blueprint shows IRS engineers creating a system to automate bulk data transfers before month’s end.
  • Blueprint details show DHS sending IRS a spreadsheet with names and past addresses; IRS matches data and returns updated addresses.
  • Blueprint allows unlimited requests and data scope, potentially exposing much more than just addresses.
  • Experts worry about false positives—using names rather than ID numbers could lead to misidentification.
  • Engineers say slight tweaks could reveal employers and relatives, raising serious privacy concerns.
  • The White House maintains the program targets “criminal illegal aliens” and fulfills Trump’s electoral promises.
  • IRS agents are being reassigned to support ICE’s deportation operations—an unprecedented shift in agency roles.

Pushback

  • IRS data is highly protected, and unauthorized sharing could be a felony; ICE’s plan risks breaching these protections.
  • Experts warn the platform’s crude design risks misidentifying innocent people due to name-based searches.
  • Ex-IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said privacy laws weren’t intended to justify mass data sharing.
  • IRS insiders cautioned the system could wrongly target people because of bad address data. ICE proposed giving names and states to the IRS for address matches, worrying IRS lawyers about legal risks. Meetings between DHS and IRS led to proposals that prompted legal and privacy staff to leave in protest.
  • In March, immigrant groups sued the IRS over the MOU, but a judge ruled the DHS-IRS collaboration legal under current law.
  • Advocates argue the IRS is breaking its promise to protect tax data from deportation use, threatening undocumented taxpayers’ trust.
  • Tax and privacy experts say they worry that such a powerful but crude platform could make dangerous mistakes when the search starts with a name instead of a taxpayer ID number.
  • In March immigrant groups sued the IRS, calling the MOU illegal, but a judge upheld DHS-IRS collaboration as compliant with current law, allowing development to proceed.
  • Sen. Ron Wyden warned the system could enable unjustified investigations unrelated to tax enforcement.
  • They were “pushing the boundaries of the law,” one official said. “Everyone at IRS felt the same way.”
  • Some IRS engineers and lawyers have avoided the project, fearing legal risk
  •  “For years, the IRS has told immigrants that it only cares that they pay their taxes,” said Nandan Joshi, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is seeking to block the data-sharing agreement in federal court. “By agreeing to share taxpayer data with ICE on a mass basis, the IRS has gone back on its word.”