DHS Now Demanding The IRS Turn Over Tax Records On 7 Million Immigrants
Less than a week ago, the Trump Administration and its assorted haters undermined one of their own lies. Among the many smears leveled against immigrants, the one that claims they’re lazy freeloaders who take more than they give back to the US is one of the stupidest.
Immigrants pay taxes, even if they’re not here legally. It’s something that’s inevitable when they seek employment. In lieu of Social Security numbers, immigrants are issued ITINs (Individual Tax Identification Numbers). Without these, obtaining employment is almost impossible. Immigrants pay billions a year in state and federal taxes. And the government has always come out ahead, even when its leaders are pretending immigrants are draining the nation of jobs and tax dollars, somehow simultaneously.
The Social Security Administration estimated in 2010, for example, that such immigrants contribute $12 billion per year more to the Social Security system than they take out, he noted.
The biggest deterrent to paying taxes is hardline anti-immigrant tactics. That’s what the Trump Administration used last time, and it had a notable effect on tax returns filed by immigrants. In some areas of the country, tax filings fell by as much as 20% during Trump’s first term.
This time it will be worse. Not only has the anti-immigrant aggression been amped up, but the DHS has decided to cross a line it has never crossed before. It is demanding the IRS turn over tax records on immigrants for the sole purpose of discovering where they live and where they work.
The DHS is trying to push the IRS into an agreement to share information on ITIN holders, solely for the purpose of discovering where these (tax-paying!) immigrants live and work. The IRS rebuffed the first demand, which asked for info on 700,000 immigrants. Shortly after rejecting this request, IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell resigned, ending his 38-year career with the agency, rather than serve as a tool of oppression for the (second) Trump Administration.
He was immediately replaced by Melanie Krause, who has already displayed her willingness to do whatever Trump wants. With O’Donnell out of the way, the DHS has exponentially increased the scope of its data request, according to Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post.
DHS officials initially said they would send preliminary queries about 2 million taxpayers and would eventually seek help locating 7 million individuals, the people said.
Federal officials estimate that there are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
This isn’t about finding the dangerous immigrants with criminal records and expelling them from this country. It never was about that, anyway. The rhetoric got the foot in the door and now the door has not just been opened, but removed completely. This is about expelling as many foreign-born residents from the United States as quickly as possible, even if they’ve done nothing criminal at all. Asking for records on 7 million immigrants means the DHS wants to hunt down and remove people who’ve done nothing more than work hard and pay taxes since their arrival in the US.
Of course, there will be idiots in the comments who will claim that being in the US illegally is itself a crime and thus supports the bullshit proposition that Trump’s war on immigrants will only remove criminals. I’ve got bad news for these chumps: being in the country illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal violation. Illegal re-entry may cross that line into criminality, but given the expansiveness of this data demand (which itself may be illegal), the DHS and its components aren’t going to exercise caution and discretion while turning Trump’s angry rhetoric into possibly violent action.
It’s also a bad faith response to good faith actions by immigrants living and working in this country. For years, they’ve been assured (but obviously not guaranteed) that showing a long record of working and paying taxes will help them when applying for permanent residency. In fact, as the Washington Post article points out, at least part of this assumption has been codified:
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, for instance, granted permanent legal status to undocumented migrants who had paid back taxes, among other requirements.
But this administration isn’t willing to follow laws it doesn’t like. And it’s already been disappearing people off the streets and arresting them on college campuses simply for saying things Trump and his enablers don’t like. Legal US citizens are being arrested and detained by ICE agents looking to hit the 1,200/day arrest quota that they’re all going to have to pretend isn’t a quota once the lawsuits really start flying.
A lie only lasts as long as it’s convenient. Now, the truth is on display. Unfortunately, in this nation under this president, the truth won’t be setting anyone free anytime soon.