Washington – The IRS interim commissioner is renouncing an agreement to share the fiscal data of immigrants with immigration and customs application in order to identify and deport people illegally in the United States, according to two people familiar with the decision.
Melanie Krause, who had served as chief of action since February, will resign the new data exchange document signed on Monday by the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, and National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem. The agreement will allow ICE to send immigrant names and addresses within the US.
Two people familiar with the situation confirmed that Krause renounced and spoke with Associated Press about the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The IRS has been agitated about the decisions of the Trump administration to share taxpayers data. The interim commissioner Douglas O’Donnell announced his retirement from the agency after approximately 40 years of service in February as furor extended through the Efficient Efficiency Department of Elon Musk’s government, obtaining access to the IRS taxpayers data. Krause replaced it.
The interim main lawyer William Paul was withdrawn from his role in the agency last month and replaced by Andrew de Mello, a lawyer from the main lawyer’s office who is considered to support Doge, according to two other people familiar with the plans that were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Treasury Department says that the agreement will help to carry out the agenda of President Donald Trump to ensure the borders of the United States and is part of his largest national immigration repression, which has resulted in deportations, raised in the workplace and the use of a 18th -century war law to deport the Venezuelan immigrants.
The defenders, however, say that the IRS-DHS information exchange agreement violates privacy laws and decreases the privacy of all Americans.
The basis of the agreement is based on “long -standing authorities granted by Congress, which serve to protect the privacy of Americans respectful of the law while rationalizing the ability to persecute criminals,” said a treasure officer who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the agency’s thinking about the agreement.
Tom Bowman, policy advisor to the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that revealing tax registers to DHS for the application of immigration “will discourage compliance with taxes between immigrant communities, weaken contributions to essential public programs and increase charges for US citizens and non -immigrants. Data privacy in other federal programs. “
Todd Lyons, interim director of ICE, told the journalists of the border Security Expo in Phoenix on Tuesday that the agreement will help ICE find people who collect benefits to whom they do not have the right and that they are “hidden in sight” using the identity of another person.
Working with treasure and other departments is “strictly for the main criminal cases,” Lyons said.
The IRS had already been called to help with the application of immigration earlier this year.
Noem in February sent a request to Besent to borrow IRS criminal investigation workers to help with the repression of immigration, according to a letter obtained by the AP. The impulse of the IRS in the financing cites, although the infusion of funds of $ 80 billion that the Federal Tax Collection Agency received under the Democratic Inflation Reduction Law has already been recovered.
A collection of fiscal law experts for the NYU Fiscal Law Center wrote on Monday that the IRS-DHS agreement “threatens to violate the rights that many more Americans have under long-date laws that protect their fiscal information from the dissemination or illicit dissemination.”
“In fact, it is difficult to see how IRS could disseminate information to the DHS while complying with the taxpayers’ privacy statutes,” they said. “IRS officials signed by the exchange of data in these circumstances are at risk of breaking the law, which could result in criminal and civil sanctions.”
The memorandum establishes that IRS and ICE “will perform their duties in a way that recognizes and improves the privacy right of people and will ensure that their activities are consistent with laws, regulations and good administrative practices.”
