By AZ Mirror
A panel of judges on an appeals court Friday seemed split about whether the Trump administration’s move to request taxpayer information from the Internal Revenue Service for the purposes of immigration enforcement is lawful.
Friday’s oral arguments were heard before U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judges Sri Srinivasan, Patricia Millett and Harry Edwards. A district court in May upheld the legality of an information-sharing agreement between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the IRS.
It would be the first time the IRS shared sensitive tax information with DHS to carry out immigration enforcement.
Department of Justice attorney Aaron Henricks, representing the Trump administration, said that an IRS statute, Section 6103(i), allows for disclosure of taxpayer information for criminal investigations. He argued that if an immigrant stays over the 90-day deadline for a final order of removal, it would be the reason for the beginning of a criminal investigation.
