The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to help Homeland Security authorities find migrants they are about to oust, and is shifting to use protected taxpayer information to help Trump drive a massive deportation, according to three officials familiar with the issue.
According to a copy of the document viewed by the New York Times, under the draft agreement between the IRS and immigration customs enforcement, tax agencies will check if they have an appropriate home address for those ordered to leave the United States.
Many undocumented immigrants file tax returns with the IRS and provide agencies with information about where they live, their family, employers and income. For a long time, the IRS has encouraged undocumented immigrants to pay taxes, giving people without a Social Security number a separate nine-digit code called an individual's taxpayer identification number to submit returns.
Tax information is closely guarded due to inappropriate disclosures under federal law. IRS officials resisted previous requests from the Department of Homeland Security to take over information about fraudulent immigration, warning that doing so could violate federal law.
However, the Trump administration has since replaced the top IRS lawyers, and the agreement currently under discussion appears to be narrower than previous demands, asking them to hand over to the IRS rather than confirming the address of immigrants.
Authorities still finalize the contract, with terms of which had previously been reported by the Washington Post. A spokesman for the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, did not respond to a request for comment. ICE also did not respond to requests for comment.
The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly attempted to register IRS agents in a wide range of immigration crackdowns and has asked for audits of companies that could employ fraudulent immigrants.
