Congressional committees are demanding investigations into the IRS’ disclosure of immigrant taxpayer data to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after an official made a declaration to federal court contradicting prior statements, escalating an ongoing legal battle over the disclosures.
IRS Official Admits Flawed Data-Sharing
The latest scrutiny stems from a February 11 declaration by IRS Chief Risk and Control Officer Dottie Romo, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In the filing, Romo stated that a recent review found the IRS may have supplied ICE with taxpayer addresses based on “incomplete or insufficiently populated” address information provided by ICE.
At issue is the IRS’ handling of a June 2025 request from ICE for the last known addresses of 1.28 million individuals. On August 7, the IRS provided addresses for 47,289 individuals. Romo’s declaration states that the IRS has since determined that nearly 5% of those disclosures involved “potentially incomplete or potentially insufficient” data from ICE.
The errors occurred during the agency’s “TIN Matching” process, said Romo. According to the declaration, the automated system was designed to verify that an address field provided by ICE was not blank, but it was not designed to identify instances where the field contained incomplete information, such as a zip code with language like “Failed to Provide” or “Unknown Address.”
This admission goes against earlier government assertions that its data-sharing processes were sufficient to prevent such improper disclosures.
Congressional Committees Demand Probes
The day after the IRS court filing, lawmakers in the House and Senate sent letters demanding answers and accountability.
In a February 12 letter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), members of the House Ways and Means Committee requested an “immediate” investigation. Calling the disclosures an action that “endangers working, tax paying individuals” and “disincentivizes tax compliance for everyone,” the lawmakers demanded that TIGTA conduct a comprehensive and timely investigation, produce a report with findings and recommendations, provide the committee members with a full, unredacted copy of that report, and make as much of it public as possible, consistent with IRC § 6103.
Separately, eight members of the Senate Finance Committee, led by Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR), wrote to the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expressing “alarm” over the disclosures. “The risk to innocent people was entirely predictable once taxpayer data was used for immigration enforcement,” the senators wrote, adding that the IRS now admits the system “led to exactly the kinds of grave mistakes our taxpayer privacy laws were designed to prevent.”
The senators, following up on their previous request, posed a series of detailed questions to the agencies, demanding a response by March 15. They asked which officials are responsible for the improper disclosures, whether any IRS or DHS employee has been investigated or held accountable, and if any of the 47,289 affected taxpayers have been questioned, arrested, detained, or deported. The committee also demanded to know what plan is in place to remedy any detainments or deportations made in error and whether affected taxpayers have been notified that their information was improperly disclosed.
Legal Battle Escalates in Appeals Court
The disclosures are central to an ongoing lawsuit, Center for Taxpayer Rights v. Internal Revenue Service, which challenges the April 2025 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that allows the IRS to provide taxpayer address information to ICE for non-tax criminal investigations under an exception in IRC § 6103. In November 2025, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, finding the data-sharing policy was likely unlawful. The government is currently appealing that decision.
The IRS’ admission has triggered a new round of legal filings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. On February 13, the plaintiffs, led by the Center for Taxpayer Rights, filed a motion to stay the appeal. They argued that the new facts are “highly relevant,” contradict the government’s previous arguments, and prove that their initial concerns were not “based only on speculation.” The motion seeks to pause the appeal to allow the district court to consider the new evidence.
On February 17, the government filed its opening brief in the appeal, urging the court to vacate the district court’s injunction. The government argues that the plaintiffs’ case fails on multiple threshold legal grounds, including a lack of legal standing, and that the IRS’ policy is neither a “final agency action” reviewable by the court nor a violation of IRC § 6103.
“Plaintiffs are not likely to prevail on any of these issues, let alone all of them,” the government stated in its brief.
For more on tax return information safeguards, see Checkpoint’s Federal Tax Coordinator 2d ¶ S-6410.
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