Media contacts:
Asian Law Caucus, media@asianlawcaucus.org
Greater Boston Legal Services, larevalo@gbls.org; ADivaris@gbls.org
Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, hnaughton@keker.com
Immigrant and Taxpayer Advocates Demand Full Answers on Federal Agencies’ Unlawful Transfers of Protected Data
BOSTON – Taxpayer and immigrants’ rights advocates filed new motions in their lawsuit Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts et al. v. Bessent et al., which challenges the federal agencies’ unlawful sharing of protected taxpayer information. One motion seeks answers on whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using government contractors ThunderCat and Palantir to obtain immigrant taxpayers’ information, in violation of a February 2026 court order won by the advocates that blocked ICE from using or accessing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data in its possession.
The second motion seeks to reveal the details of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) transmission of hundreds of immigrants’ information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in March of 2025. The agency has provided only a heavily redacted record of this transmission, undermining public accountability and creating concern from advocates that it may currently be violating the law.
Today’s motions were filed by Asian Law Caucus, Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on behalf of groups that provide taxpayer services and advocate for the rights and needs of immigrant communities: Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts (CEDC), National Korean American Service and Educational Consortium (NAKASEC), National Parents Union (NPU), and Undocublack Network (UBN).
IRS and SSA abuse of taxpayer data circumvents strict privacy law and exposes taxpayers and families to risk of immigration enforcement
The new filings come after DHS awarded a $10 million contract to ThunderCat Technology, LLC in June 2026 to provide “Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) data” and analytics to the Homeland Security Investigations unit of ICE. The filings also follow revelations that ICE has unlawfully shared confidential Medicaid data with Palantir through a Microsoft Teams chat, leaving that data saved in multiple cloud locations. Palantir conducts extensive work for both IRS and ICE, providing the latter an enforcement targeting tool and an opening to access multiple IRS databases. Protected taxpayer data in the hands of a third-party ICE contractor would represent an attempt to circumvent the federal court order – another example of the Trump administration ignoring the law.
“The government cannot outsource its way around the law. That’s why we are demanding answers to find out whether ICE is potentially sharing and obtaining protected taxpayer information through seven-figure contracts to tech companies, in violation of a federal court order,” said Josh Rosenthal, workers’ rights program director at Asian Law Caucus. “Putting protected taxpayer information in the hands of private tech giants puts all of our privacy, safety, and rights at risk. We will continue fighting to get answers and hold our government accountable.”
“A court order is only meaningful if the government cannot evade it through contractors or conceal whether it is complying,” said Sarah Salomon, partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP. “These motions seek straightforward answers about who received protected taxpayer and Social Security information, how that information has been used, and whether federal agencies are following the law. Immigrant families are entitled to the privacy protections Congress gave them, and we will keep pressing for transparency.”
In 2025 ICE, the IRS, and the SSA formalized agreements and began the transfer of massive data sets. Protected by strict federal privacy laws, the information held by the IRS and SSA can only be released to other parties, including other agencies, under specific and limited circumstances. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in 2026 released a report pointing to serious concerns about the transmission and safeguarding of information with DHS. Taxpayer and immigrant advocates have raised alarm over the exposure of over one million taxpayers’ sensitive data that puts their communities at risk of potential arrest, detention, and deportation without due process.
"Our ultimate goal is to make sure taxpayers can trust the government when it provides their most sensitive information”, said Luz Arévalo, Director of Greater Boston Legal Services’ Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic. “Here, the government tells us our data is secure because ICE stored it on 'one individual laptop' under 'lock and key.' This assurance completely ignores modern technological realities. Even the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently reported that since 2023, ICE has been less than scrupulous in protecting this critical data. We cannot rely on outdated security assumptions when handling highly sensitive information; the court must step in to ensure real accountability and modern protections."