Judicial Overreach: Court Shields Tax Records, ICE Power Curtailed

Paul Riverbank, 2/7/2026Court battles draw lines on ICE authority, privacy, infrastructure funding—and who wields federal power.

The federal government, for its part, called this a sensible tool. They argued that, for many undocumented immigrants, taxes were the only trail they left—a way for ICE to find those who paid up but weren't on anyone’s arrest lists. But Talwani didn’t buy it. She saw something altogether heavier: “Giving ICE this unchecked authority,” her order warned, risked creating an American panopticon. And her concern wasn’t abstract. She recounted a slip-up in Minnesota, where a man, a citizen no less, was swept up because his name sounded a bit too familiar for a bureaucrat’s comfort. These mistakes don’t stay rare for long.

Talwani has made a habit lately of standing in front of steamrollers. Not long before, she stopped the Department of Homeland Security from stripping parole protections from thousands—folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. That ruling forced DHS to let them stay, at least for now. Only a few weeks back, she put the brakes on attempts to block Medicaid dollars from reaching Planned Parenthood affiliates. Her logic travels the same route each time: laws, she argues, ought to shield the powerless, not train crosshairs on them.

While Boston’s legal dust swirled, a very different kind of showdown was building to the south. Under the Hudson River, workers on the sprawling Gateway tunnel project were packing up. Trains between Washington and Boston depend on these battered old tunnels, and this was supposed to be the fix—$16 billion in federal money to keep the Northeast moving. Then came the freeze: the Trump administration hit the pause button on funding, just as tempers in Congress were starting to fray. By Thursday, cranes were coming down, workers were sent home, and the music—such as it was—cut off mid-note.

Guido Rivieccio, a shop steward dusted in tunnel grit, squinted at the emptying job site. “We are the pawns and it’s not fair,” he said, the uncertainty heavy in his voice. One thousand people stood to lose their paychecks; nobody knew if their next shift would ever come.

The scramble reached the courts—again. Tom Prendergast, who helms the Gateway commission, sounded tired. “We’ve gone as far as we can go,” he told reporters. Lawsuits from New York and New Jersey landed, pointing to congressional authorizations and insisting the funds weren’t optional. Over on Capitol Hill, Senator Schumer stood in front of microphones, blaming President Trump and urging him to unfreeze the cash—for the sake of jobs, for the economy, for a region built on railroads. White House officials, in turn, shrugged off responsibility, hinting the holdup came from the other side of the aisle.

Then things took a turn for the surreal. News leaked that Trump privately dangled a deal: restore the funding, provided Penn Station and Dulles Airport—no minor pieces of infrastructure—got a presidential rebrand. “No. This is ridiculous,” snapped Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, filing the suggestion under political theater.

If that particular melodrama felt detached from everyday reality, the consequences didn't. For families trying to stay here lawfully, for construction crews facing pink slips, for anyone paying attention, the lesson kept echoing: who controls federal power can upend more than just a workday or a tax filing. Behind the headlines, still more complications boiled: President Trump, now a litigant himself, sued the very government he once commanded, over leaks of his tax returns. An unusual case, to put it mildly—Senator Thom Tillis asked, only half in jest, “Can a president sue his own administration with a straight face?”

A thread runs through these cases whether you dwell on the details or just glance at the big picture. How much reach should the federal government have? Where does policing end and personal privacy begin? The courts, perhaps unwillingly, keep being asked to draw these boundaries—on paper, at job sites, in the fine print of tax law and the grit of train tunnels.

And so, as the fog persists and filings stack up, ordinary Americans are left to wait for the next legal ruling—hoping it lands on their side before the rules change all over again.

It was one of those Boston mornings where the air hangs thick, the city swallowed in a gray mist. Outside an old courthouse dressed up in stone and columns, Judge Indira Talwani drew a line—in black ink and legal prose, but a line all the same. Her ruling came down with a clarity the weather lacked: the Trump administration was blocked from letting immigration agents go rifling through American tax records.The federal government, for its part, called this a sensible tool. They argued that, for many undocumented immigrants, taxes were the only trail they left—a way for ICE to find those who paid up but weren't on anyone’s arrest lists. But Talwani didn’t buy it. She saw something altogether heavier: “Giving ICE this unchecked authority,” her order warned, risked creating an American panopticon. And her concern wasn’t abstract. She recounted a slip-up in Minnesota, where a man, a citizen no less, was swept up because his name sounded a bit too familiar for a bureaucrat’s comfort. These mistakes don’t stay rare for long.Talwani has made a habit lately of standing in front of steamrollers. Not long before, she stopped the Department of Homeland Security from stripping parole protections from thousands—folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. That ruling forced DHS to let them stay, at least for now. Only a few weeks back, she put the brakes on attempts to block Medicaid dollars from reaching Planned Parenthood affiliates. Her logic travels the same route each time: laws, she argues, ought to shield the powerless, not train crosshairs on them.While Boston’s legal dust swirled, a very different kind of showdown was building to the south. Under the Hudson River, workers on the sprawling Gateway tunnel project were packing up. Trains between Washington and Boston depend on these battered old tunnels, and this was supposed to be the fix—$16 billion in federal money to keep the Northeast moving. Then came the freeze: the Trump administration hit the pause button on funding, just as tempers in Congress were starting to fray. By Thursday, cranes were coming down, workers were sent home, and the music—such as it was—cut off mid-note.Guido Rivieccio, a shop steward dusted in tunnel grit, squinted at the emptying job site. “We are the pawns and it’s not fair,” he said, the uncertainty heavy in his voice. One thousand people stood to lose their paychecks; nobody knew if their next shift would ever come.The scramble reached the courts—again. Tom Prendergast, who helms the Gateway commission, sounded tired. “We’ve gone as far as we can go,” he told reporters. Lawsuits from New York and New Jersey landed, pointing to congressional authorizations and insisting the funds weren’t optional. Over on Capitol Hill, Senator Schumer stood in front of microphones, blaming President Trump and urging him to unfreeze the cash—for the sake of jobs, for the economy, for a region built on railroads. White House officials, in turn, shrugged off responsibility, hinting the holdup came from the other side of the aisle.Then things took a turn for the surreal. News leaked that Trump privately dangled a deal: restore the funding, provided Penn Station and Dulles Airport—no minor pieces of infrastructure—got a presidential rebrand. “No. This is ridiculous,” snapped Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, filing the suggestion under political theater.If that particular melodrama felt detached from everyday reality, the consequences didn't. For families trying to stay here lawfully, for construction crews facing pink slips, for anyone paying attention, the lesson kept echoing: who controls federal power can upend more than just a workday or a tax filing. Behind the headlines, still more complications boiled: President Trump, now a litigant himself, sued the very government he once commanded, over leaks of his tax returns. An unusual case, to put it mildly—Senator Thom Tillis asked, only half in jest, “Can a president sue his own administration with a straight face?”A thread runs through these cases whether you dwell on the details or just glance at the big picture. How much reach should the federal government have? Where does policing end and personal privacy begin? The courts, perhaps unwillingly, keep being asked to draw these boundaries—on paper, at job sites, in the fine print of tax law and the grit of train tunnels.And so, as the fog persists and filings stack up, ordinary Americans are left to wait for the next legal ruling—hoping it lands on their side before the rules change all over again.