A federal judge on Feb. 5 temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using taxpayer information supplied by the IRS for immigration enforcement purposes.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts barred DHS and one of its agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from following interagency agreements in which the IRS shares taxpayer information such as addresses with DHS and ICE.
The lawsuit, known as Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent, was brought by four community organizations in the Bay State.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect as the litigation plays out in court.
In her written opinion, the judge found that the community groups have shown there is a “high likelihood that ICE’s handling, use, and storage of taxpayer addresses violated and continues to violate Section 6103 [of the Internal Revenue Code], and therefore, the [Administrative Procedure Act].”
The act is a federal statute enacted in 1946 that governs administrative law procedures for federal executive departments and independent agencies. Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nev.) said at the time that the law was “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agencies of the federal government.”
Talwani said the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the tax code, provides “strong privacy protections” for taxpayer information obtained by the IRS and allows the tax agency to disclose such information “in connection with non-tax criminal matters only when constrained by significant procedural safeguards.”
Section 6103 of the tax code allows disclosure to state agencies responsible for tax administration, to the Social Security Administration to fulfill its responsibilities under the Social Security Act, to representatives of those facing an audit, or when ordered by a court.
Talwani said the IRS and ICE signed a memorandum of understanding and an implementing agreement in April 2025 to carry out President Donald Trump’s direction that DHS “take immediate steps to identify, exclude, or remove aliens illegally present in the United States.”
On June 5, ICE sent a request for records for 7.6 million people to the IRS, which the IRS rejected because it didn’t meet disclosure requirements in the tax code. On June 24, ICE sent a request for records for 7.3 million people, which the IRS also rejected for the same reason, the judge said.
On June 27, ICE sought records for 1.2 million people from the IRS. After the IRS screened out taxpayers who had not overstayed a final deportation order by more than 90 days, the IRS supplied the records of about 47,000 noncitizen taxpayers, Talwani said.
The judge suggested ICE data-mined IRS files to find people ICE could pursue for immigration enforcement action.
Instead of launching a criminal investigation and then determining that taxpayer information was needed and seeking that data from the IRS, ICE sought taxpayers’ addresses “and then attempted to ascertain which of those taxpayers may have potentially violated a criminal statute,” she said.
Talwani also expressed concern that individuals could be misidentified, and that this possibility, coupled with DHS’s legal position that noncitizens may be searched without a judicially issued warrant, could lead to abuse.
These considerations led the court to find that “the public interest is not served by ICE’s use of the confidential taxpayer information provided despite ICE’s failure to satisfy the statutorily required procedures for obtaining such information,” she said.
Other federal judges have issued conflicting rulings about whether the IRS may share taxpayer data for immigration enforcement purposes.
On May 12, 2025, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich of the District of Columbia declined to bar the IRS from sharing data from taxpayers facing criminal investigation with DHS.
Friedrich found that the memorandum of understanding between the IRS and DHS did not violate any data-sharing requirements set out in the Internal Revenue Code.
By contrast, on Nov. 21, 2025, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily blocked the IRS from sharing taxpayer data with DHS and its agencies unless disclosing that information was allowed under Section 6103. The case is known as Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS.
Kollar-Kotelly said the plaintiffs “have shown a substantial likelihood” that the inter-agency agreement allowing the sharing of the information is “unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act.”
The federal government appealed the ruling on Jan. 13 of this year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
On Jan. 21, Kollar-Kotelly granted a motion on consent of the parties to stay the case before her until the circuit court rules. She left the block in place for the time being.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment on Talwani’s ruling to the Department of Justice, which represents federal agencies in court. No reply was received by publication time.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Feb. 5, 2026, in The Epoch Times.