Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reportedly been asked by the Department of Homeland Security to deputize some law enforcement personnel, such as IRS criminal investigators, to support immigration enforcement.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked Bessent to send agents to assist in the investigation of cash flows involving human trafficking networks and companies that hire illegal immigrants in a document dated February 7.
The agents might assist in making arrests, holding people, and transporting them.
Noem’s request comes as part of the Trump administration’s larger initiative to have law enforcement officers from different departments step in and assist with deportations.
In a prior memo, the Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service were given authority to enforce immigration laws.
According to its most recent annual report, the number of special agents in the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal-investigation division, or IRS-CI, has increased by 10% since 2022 to 2,290.
Since the then-Democratic-controlled Congress agreed in 2022 to expand the IRS and give it more resources, the tax agency has been hiring enforcement personnel, including criminal investigators.
Republicans and President Trump opposed that expansion, and the president has made casual comments about sending IRS staff to the border on occasion.
Trump has pledged to launch the biggest mass deportation operation in American history. In recent weeks, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been working to make more arrests.
Like other federal agents, IRS criminal investigators are law enforcement officials with the authority to make arrests and frequently carry firearms.
They are not the same as IRS revenue officers and revenue agents, which are the tax agency’s terms for auditors and collectors, respectively.
IRS-CI agents frequently collaborate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to investigate financial crimes, including criminal tax evasion.
They monitor financial movements and have worked on cases that target some of the Trump administration’s top concerns, like government program fraud and fentanyl trafficking.
The paper states that they found $7 billion in various financial crimes and $2.1 billion in tax fraud in 2024.
Acting Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell, a career agency official, is currently in charge of the IRS. The Senate has not yet confirmed Trump’s choice of Billy Long, a former congressman from Missouri, to lead the IRS.
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