Live updates: Trump news, immigration and tariff updates

A federal judge is closely scrutinizing the data-sharing deal between the Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which the Trump administration hopes will speed up deportations of undocumented immigrants.

At a hearing, District Judge Dabney Friedrich said she has concerns that, if she doesn’t step in to potentially rein in the policy, anyone who gets deported based on the “unprecedented” data-sharing “may never” have a chance to contest it in US courts.

But she also rigorously challenged lawyers for the immigrant rights groups who filed the lawsuit last month in hopes of blocking the IRS from turning over confidential taxpayer information, like home addresses, to federal immigration authorities.

Friedrich repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to explain how the arrangement complies with the federal tax code – which permits data-sharing to aid ongoing criminal investigations, but not to facilitate deportations, which is a civil enforcement mechanism.

She asked what legal recourse would be available to deportees “if all of this was pretextual to do civil enforcement proceedings.” She added, “If the larger endgame is to circumvent” the strict disclosure restrictions in the federal tax code, then “that would be a problem.”

“Is this not just a vehicle to execute removals?” she asked.

Justice Department lawyer Joseph Sergi said the deal was carefully crafted to comply with the law, and requests for private data will only target people under investigation for illegally defying orders to leave the country. But, he conceded that the government could, after they locate an undocumented immigrant, drop any criminal probe and quickly deport them.

“I’m just not seeing how this helps you,” Friedrich responded.

During the hearing, however, the judge also questioned whether the groups that filed the lawsuit even had standing to bring the case. And she seemed unimpressed with the limited evidence they put forward to back up their claims that the administration is trying to circumvent the law.