IRS Shared Tax Data on 47,000 Taxpayers With ICE, Official Says

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) shared information on more than 47,000 taxpayers with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for use in the administration’s deportation efforts, according to new court documents.

In a filing on Wednesday, IRS Chief Risk and Control Officer Dottie Romo confirmed in a sworn declaration that IRS taxpayer data was shared with federal immigration officials under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that DHS signed with the Treasury Department last year. The memo allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to request names and addresses of persons suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Romo said in the court filing that the IRS identified 47,289 last known addresses of the names that DHS had requested. DHS had requested the addresses of 1.28 million people under the memorandum, according to the court papers.

In her declaration, Romo said the federal tax revenue agency told DHS on Jan. 23 to take steps to “prevent the disclosure or dissemination, and to ensure appropriate disposal, of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or insufficient address information” and requested DHS’s assistance in “promptly taking steps to remediate the matter consistent with federal law,” which includes “appropriate disposal of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or insufficient address information.”

“DHS and ICE have confirmed to Treasury and IRS that they will comply with federal law and the MOU in addressing this data issue,” Romo added in the sworn statement. “DHS and ICE further confirmed that pending the resolution of a related injunction enjoining the MOU, DHS and ICE will not inspect, view, use, copy, distribute, rely on, or otherwise act on any return information that has been obtained from or disclosed by IRS pursuant to the MOU.”

Under the April agreement, the Department of Justice argued that the MOU “signed by the Department of the Treasury and DHS reiterates the agencies’ commitment to sharing information only in the way” that is permitted under law.

“As laid out in the MOU, DHS can legally request return information relating to individuals under criminal investigation, and the IRS must provide it,” the Justice Department said at the time in response to a lawsuit that was filed by immigration advocacy organizations that sought to block the agreement.

The IRS has for years allowed illegal immigrants to file income tax returns using their individual tax identification numbers. A think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in a report in 2024 that illegal immigrants have contributed around $25.7 billion in taxes to Social Security, namely by using fake or borrowed Social Security numbers.

In response to the IRS official’s statement, a spokesperson for DHS told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement Thursday that the IRS court disclosure shows that DHS is “finally doing what it should have all along” by sharing relevant information related to illegal immigration.

“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense,” the spokesperson said.

Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has made mass deportations a priority after President Donald Trump campaigned on that promise throughout his 2024 presidential campaign.