The Trump administration is looking to delegate agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to assist in efforts to enforce illegal immigration, according to a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The DHS sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent requesting that the IRS provide agents to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The senior DHS official stated that the expectation is for the request to be approved.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who signed the letter, said President Donald Trump directed her agency to “take all appropriate measures to supplement the available personnel to secure the southern border and enforce the immigration laws of the United States,” even through the use of the agency’s authority to delegate federal employees to perform immigration functions.
Through the implementation of Trump’s directive, Noem noted that the DHS has already secured partnerships with several agencies that have agreed to help carry out the president’s immigration agenda.
She informed the agency that ICE needs IRS agents to assist and serve on interagency task forces to help build complex cases that combine tax, immigration, and money laundering.
This work may include audits of employers believed to have hired unauthorized immigrants and investigations into human trafficking, according to the memorandum. Of its approximately 100,000 employees, the IRS has over 2,100 trained officers who help investigate violations of tax law and other financial crimes.
The focus on pulling IRS agents from their primary responsibility may align with an effort by President Trump and Republican lawmakers to weaken the agency’s law enforcement.
Republicans have disapproved of the Biden administration’s efforts to revitalize the IRS with new funding and personnel.
Elon Musk has even suggested on his social media that the agency could be eliminated. Representatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have sought information on the tax collector’s information technology, aiming to automate more work to replace the need for personnel.
Cutting enforcement staff at the IRS could make it easier for people to avoid paying the taxes they owe to the U.S. government, potentially widening the country’s deficit.
Sources: Fox News and The New York Times