A recent report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has identified significant security weaknesses in the data-sharing agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Established in 2025, this arrangement enabled ICE to request taxpayer information to support immigration investigations, but caused data mismatches and privacy breaches that compromised taxpayer confidentiality.
The report presented the first official overview of the program’s scope, detailing how ICE submitted over 1.2 million immigrant names and addresses to the IRS. In response, the IRS provided last-known address information for roughly 47,000 individuals. However, inconsistencies in data formatting on ICE’s end led to flawed automated matching processes within the IRS, producing inaccurate or incomplete address matches. These errors undermined the reliability of the information exchange and raised doubts about the arrangement's integrity.
This data-sharing pact was a part of President Donald Trump's broader effort to tighten immigration enforcement through increased interagency cooperation. Despite its intention to identify unauthorized immigrants, the program quickly became contentious. The IRS acting commissioner resigned amid public scrutiny, and multiple lawsuits challenged the legality of sharing confidential taxpayer data with ICE. In fact, a federal judge ruled earlier that year that the IRS unlawfully disclosed protected taxpayer information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of this deal.
The TIGTA report did not put forward specific recommendations but indicated plans to relay uncovered security concerns to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. Treasury and IRS officials declined to comment on the findings. The controversy underscores ongoing tensions between immigration enforcement priorities and the obligation to protect taxpayer privacy under federal law.