New York Times, I.R.S. Prepares to Help Find Immigrants Targeted for Deportation:
The tax agency is nearing an agreement to verify whether ICE officials have the right address for people they are trying to deport.
The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to help homeland security officials locate immigrants they are trying to deport, according to three officials familiar with the matter, in a shift toward using protected taxpayer information to help President Trump’s mass deportation push.
Under a draft of an agreement between the I.R.S. and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the tax agency would verify whether immigration officials had the right home address for people who have been ordered to leave the United States, according to a copy of the document viewed by The New York Times.
Wall Street Journal, IRS Nears Deal to Share Data for Immigration Enforcement:
ICE would be able to ask if names and addresses match tax records. …
, frequent data sharing between IRS and ICE would be a significant shift in how tax authorities treat immigrants in the country illegally and could reduce their tax compliance. For decades, the IRS has encouraged people to comply with the tax laws even if they are in the country unlawfully, issuing individual taxpayer identification numbers often used on returns for people who lack Social Security numbers. At the end of 2022, there were 5.8 million active ID numbers, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The idea has been to prod people to pay the taxes they owe, generating revenue and creating a pattern of compliance, particularly for people who eventually become legal residents or citizens.
“This is going to discourage people from filing taxes—including U.S. citizens married to undocumented people,” said Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE official under the Biden administration.
Washington Post, IRS Nears Deal With ICE to Share Addresses of Suspected Undocumented Immigrants:
The move toward information-sharing comes as President Donald 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.
The proposed agreement has alarmed career officials at the IRS, the people said, who worry that the arrangement risks abusing a narrow and seldom-used section of privacy law that’s meant to help investigators build criminal cases, not enforce criminal penalties.
According to portions of a draft of the agreement obtained by The Washington Post, ICE access to tax data would be limited to confirming the addresses of immigrants with final removal orders. Requests could be submitted only by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem or acting ICE director Todd Lyons, the memo says, and must include the name and address of each taxpayer, the date of their order for removal and other identifying information that would allow the IRS to verify the taxpayer’s identity. The agreement would authorize data verification for people “subject to criminal investigation” for violating immigration law.
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