A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service broke the law by sharing the confidential taxpayer information of thousands of people with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — a finding that carries significant implications for immigrant families in communities across San Diego County, including East County.U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that the IRS violated IRS Code 6103 — one of the strictest taxpayer privacy laws on the books — \"approximately 42,695 times by disclosing last known taxpayer addresses to ICE.\" The judge based her finding on a declaration filed by the IRS's own chief risk and control officer, which revealed that the agency had provided DHS with information on 47,000 of the 1.28 million people that ICE had requested.In most of those cases, the IRS gave ICE additional address information in ways that violated privacy rules created to protect taxpayer data, the judge found.The disclosure pipeline stems from a data-sharing agreement signed last April by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, which allows ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants for cross-verification against IRS tax records. The deal prompted the then-acting IRS commissioner to resign.For immigrants living in East County — including many who have filed taxes for years and are embedded in local businesses, schools, and neighborhoods — the ruling may offer some reassurance that a court has recognized their privacy rights were violated. However, the government is appealing the decision, and several related legal challenges remain active.\"This confirms what we've been saying all along: that the IRS has an unlawful policy that violates the Internal Revenue Code's protections,\" said Nina Olson, founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, which sued the government over the disclosure program. Residents with questions about the case can follow updates via the Associated Press report at apnews.com.