The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision on Tuesday (September 8) to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from sharing information with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Previously, ICE requested the IRS to provide the last known addresses of approximately 1.28 million individuals who may be residing in the U.S. illegally.
The Appeals Court noted that while the IRS can share information when assisting in the prosecution of certain crimes under normal circumstances, the requesting agency must provide the names of federal employees who are “personally and directly involved” in the relevant investigation or litigation for specific taxpayers.
Judge Cornelia Pillard, writing on behalf of the three-judge panel of the Appeals Court, stated that the IRS “failed to provide ICE with ‘specific reasons’ as required by the regulations, explaining how the requested information is ‘related or may be related’ to [qualifying] litigation or investigation.”
The panel ruled that ICE’s request for the last known addresses from the IRS violated Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, enacted after the Watergate Scandal. This law strictly limits IRS from sharing taxpayer information with other agencies unless certain conditions are met.
The ruling pointed out that in the summer of 2025, when ICE requested information on 1.28 million taxpayers, the same person was designated as the contact for each request. The court found this mass information sharing approach to violate privacy protections, diminish the privacy rights of non-citizens in tax filings, and provide ICE with an independent automated means of access, depriving all taxpayers of the protections afforded by Section 6103.
Earlier, in November 2025, a lower court had issued an injunction preventing the IRS from assisting ICE in deportation actions. The Appeals Court agreed that the policy could be reviewed under the Administrative Procedure Act but upheld the injunction.
Reports indicate that the IRS eventually provided address information for approximately 47,000 individuals to ICE, but the court found the procedures did not comply with legal requirements. The injunction currently remains in effect, and whether either party will appeal in the future is still to be observed.
(Compiled with reference to reports from “The Hill”)