The IRS isn’t ICE for a reason: Let’s keep it that way

As part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, the Internal Revenue Service is nearing an agreement to let immigration officials use taxpayer information to find undocumented immigrants.

Under the terms of the deal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would submit names and addresses of people suspected of being in the country illegally, for the tax agency to run through its database. This reportedly follows weeks of negotiations between the agencies over how the tax system could be used to support mass deportations.  

Such an arrangement, if implemented, would be harmful to American taxpayers and the IRS. It seems to rest on shaky legal grounds, and it will incentivize undocumented people to not pay their taxes. Sadly, it will probably also lead to greater mistrust of our government.

It might surprise people to know that many undocumented immigrants pay taxes just like other people, at the state, local and federal levels. Because they cannot legally get a Social Security number, undocumented people often use an Individual Taxpayer ID number, which they obtain from the IRS. In 2023, the Treasury Department estimated that there were more than 5.8 million of these numbers in active use.

The money that undocumented people pay to the U.S. government is significant. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports that in 2022, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in taxes. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, went to the federal government.   

But once it is known that the IRS is cooperating with immigration authorities, it’s logical to envision a drop-off in taxes submitted by immigrants. This will harm American citizens because the money collected by the government from undocumented people goes to fund public schools, roads, and social service programs.

Consider that in 2022, undocumented immigrants paid more than $25 billion into Social Security, and over $6 billion into Medicare, two programs they are barred from accessing. Tax compliance will fall once immigrants realize that paying their taxes could lead to deportation. And this comes at a time when IRS officials are already predicting a 10 percent drop in tax revenue.  

Because the IRS is part of the executive branch, it operates at the direction of the Trump administration. Yet it would be a serious policy mistake for the country’s least-liked federal agency to become entangled with immigration enforcement. If limited resources are devoted to rooting out undocumented people, more serious tax crimes will go unpunished. 

Plus, tasking the IRS to help carry out the president’s immigration policies would damage the agency’s integrity. The last thing this underfunded agency needs is to be seen as a partisan arm of any administration. No wonder, according to the Washington Post, news of this agreement has “alarmed” career IRS officials.  

The legality of cooperation between the IRS and immigration authorities is unclear. Under federal law, taxpayer information is confidential except in very limited circumstances.

That’s why the IRS rejected Homeland Security’s request last month for the names and addresses of 700,000 suspected undocumented people. The acting IRS commissioner and agency attorneys concluded that such data-sharing would be unlawful. The acting IRS director then resigned, and the Trump administration has since replaced the agency’s top attorney.

It is easy to deduce that political motives are driving this unprecedented shift in IRS policy. 

True, people in the U.S. without authorization are subject to detention and removal by the government. That is the law. However, targeting taxpaying immigrants will not fix our immigration woes; it will only drive people further into the underground economy while depriving the IRS of funds.   

Meanwhile, it sets a dangerous precedent for Americans to have one government agency sharing private data with another in support of a partisan agenda. It opens the door for the government to potentially use confidential tax information to go after its political enemies.  

For decades, the IRS encouraged undocumented people to pay their taxes, and many did so as a way of demonstrating that they are law-abiding and contributing to the country. If it goes into effect, this new arrangement would amount to a betrayal of undocumented people who have been trying to do the right thing while they have been in the country.  

Having tax agents cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts will be costly, wasteful and possibly illegal. The administration has myriad, powerful ways to go after undocumented immigrants, so it should keep its hands off the IRS. 

Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion.