The Department of Homeland Security has requested Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to reassign IRS criminal investigators to perform deportation duties.
In her memo from last Friday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said she would like to use the IRS investigators to track down the financial dealings of human traffickers who bring in illegals to take American jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This is not the first time DHS has reached out to other agencies and asked them to assign help to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation duties. In a previous memo, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms were also tasked with helping ICE.
The WSJ noted that the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation division has 2,290 special agents trained in forensic accounting and financial investigations. This staff has been growing since Biden initiated a huge hike in IRS resources that he wanted brought to bear against everyday Americans.
The IRS agents Noem requested have full police powers, carry firearms, have the power to arrest and detain people, and are a separate division from regular IRS enforcement officers and revenue agents.
In 2024, the IRS-CI uncovered $2.1 billion in tax fraud and another $7 billion in other financial crimes.
Even before Trump’s new secretary took her seat at the head of the Department of Homeland Security, the department reached out to other federal agencies for assistance with the deportation effort. Late in January, DHS sent a memo to other agencies detailing its “essential” needs.
“Thanks to the last Administration’s open border policies, we’ve seen violent criminals and gang members terrorize American communities,” a DHS spokesperson said at the time in a statement. “Today’s action empowers law enforcement officials at the DOJ to help identify and apprehend aliens who have illegally come into our country.”
The directive enabled the DOJ to assign federal law enforcement agencies to assist ICE in its removal operations and Homeland Security Investigations special agents in carrying out President Trump’s promise to initiate the largest deportation effort in history.
The DOJ then gave the U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Federal Bureau of Prisons the authority to investigate and apprehend illegal aliens.
“Mobilizing these law enforcement officials will help fulfill President Trump’s promise to the American people to carry out mass deportations,” the spokesperson continued. “For decades, efforts to find and apprehend illegal aliens have not been given proper resources. This is a major step in fixing that problem.”
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