New York Times:  Paying Taxes, and Fearing Deportation, by Dan Frosch:

For the past decade, thousands of Hispanic men and women who settled here went to Amalia’s Translation and Tax Services to pay their annual income taxes. Whether these people were in the United States legally mattered little to Amalia Cerrillo, who runs the business out of her home in this northern Colorado farming town. The IRS, Ms. Cerrillo knew, requires everyone, regardless of immigration status, to pay taxes on income earned in this country. …

That all changed Oct. 17, when investigators with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, armed with a search warrant, seized thousands of confidential tax returns from Ms. Cerrillo’s business. They told her they were looking for people with fraudulent Social Security numbers, commonly used by illegal immigrants to get work.

The seizure of the tax returns was the first step in a broad, continuing investigation, called Operation Number Games by local law enforcement officials. Sheriff John Cooke said his investigators had identified about 1,300 illegal immigrants who had filed tax returns bearing fake or stolen Social Security numbers. Many will face deportation proceedings. …

The campaign is causing concern at the IRS, which says illegal immigrants paid almost $50 billion in taxes from 1996 to 2003, and among immigrants’ rights groups, which call the operation a thinly disguised attempt to root out illegal immigrants.

(Hat Tip: Francine Lipman.)

Update: DA's Response to Judge's Order to Show Cause Why Tax Returns Could be Disclosed.  (Hat Tip:  Ann Murphy.)