The Internal Revenue Service is poised to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to protected taxpayer information so the agency can locate immigrants they are trying to deport, according to reporting by The New York Times based on three officials familiar with the matter.
A draft of the agreement shows that IRS officials would verify whether immigration enforcement had the right home address for the people they are looking for. While data obtained by the IRS can be shared with other federal law enforcement agencies, it only happens under limited conditions and typically requires a court’s approval. Disclosing tax data outside of these narrow circumstances can carry civil and criminal penalties.
IRS officials have long encouraged migrants to file their taxes, under the expectation that their personal information would be confidential and protected. Immigrants without Social Security numbers are given a separate nine-digit code, an individual taxpayer identification number, in order to file their returns.
“It is a complete betrayal of 30 years of the government telling immigrants to file their taxes,” one former IRS official told The Washington Post, who chose anonymity out of fear of retribution.
The partnership between the IRS and ICE is one of the latest moves from President Donald Trump’s administration in their unprecedented onslaught against immigrants, especially ones without documentation.
In just a few months, as detailed by ProPublica, Trump has made significant changes to immigration policy. He declared a national emergency at the border, ended “catch and release,” ordered asylum seekers to stay in Mexico, expanded deportation targets, deployed more military personnel, and increased detainment facilities. He also authorized local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, attempted to end birthright citizenship, and eliminated humanitarian parole programs for asylum.
“It’s really hard for outside organizations, politicians, or the public in general to focus on any one of them,” Andrew Selee, who heads up the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told ProPublica.
Previously, IRS officials had resisted such requests from immigration enforcement, but after Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency made moves to rework the organization, leaders at the agency agreed to cooperate with Homeland Security.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration replaced the top lawyer at the IRS. William Paul, a career official named acting chief counsel in January, was ousted so Andrew De Mello, an attorney in the chief counsel’s office who is reportedly more DOGE-friendly, could step in. Since Trump took office, thousands of IRS employees have already lost their jobs and, according to the Post, “some officials have said they are expecting as many as 25,000 IRS employees to be laid off.”
