Pt 2
“It is a complete betrayal of 30 years of the government telling immigrants to file their taxes,” one former IRS official said.
The move toward information-sharing comes as Trump pushes his administration to use every resource to conduct what he hopes will be the largest mass deportation of immigrants in U.S. history.
For weeks, immigration enforcement officials have tried to dramatically ramp up arrests, aiming for at least 1,200 to 1,500 per day, using a series of aggressive and unconventional tactics. Among them: recruiting the help of agencies not usually involved with immigration enforcement, invoking the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador and expanding the government’s power to expel migrants without a court hearing.
While Trump and his top aides vowed to focus on immigrants in the country illegally or convicted of committing a violent crime, recent enforcement actions have ensnared thousands of migrants and immigrants who have authorization to be in the country.
Meanwhile, DHS on Friday eliminated three internal watchdog agencies that advocated for immigrants and investigated complaints about detention conditions, the care of migrant children and delays in processing applications for green cards or citizenship. DHS officials said the offices created bureaucratic hurdles that obstructed the agency’s work.
The agreement with IRS appears to mark the first time immigration officials have turned to the tax system for large-scale enforcement assistance. Undocumented workers’ wages are subject to the same tax withholding and reporting requirements that apply to other U.S. residents. Many immigrants file tax returns and save them in hopes that a record of paying taxes will one day help them make a case to apply for legal residency. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted permanent legal status to undocumented migrants who had paid back taxes, among other requirements.
On its website, the IRS says undocumented immigrants “are subject to U.S. taxes in spite of their illegal status.” Because most are ineligible for Social Security numbers, the IRS allows them instead to file with individual taxpayer numbers, known as ITINs.
If approved, the agreement to share taxpayer information with ICE would mark a sharp reversal from just a few weeks ago. Last month, IRS leadership rejected a DHS request for the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 700,000 people the Trump administration suspected of being in the country illegally.
The acting IRS commissioner at the time, Doug O’Donnell, and agency attorneys concluded both requests were unlawful. O’Donnell retired the next day, after 38 years at the tax agency. His successor, Melanie Krause, quickly signaled an interest in collaborating with Homeland Security officials, The Post has reported.
Two weeks later, the Trump administration also replaced the IRS’s top attorney, who had voiced opposition to attempts to share taxpayer data across agencies, including by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.
Krause and the IRS’s new acting chief counsel, Andrew De Mello, have since met multiple times with Treasury and DHS officials to hash out an agreement, three of the people said.
right?
. They was out there in joy at his inauguration.
apple.news
