By Tarini Parti and Richard Rubin
WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security has asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to deputize some law-enforcement workers, including IRS criminal investigators, to assist in immigration enforcement, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
In a memo dated Feb. 7, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested Bessent provide agents who would help investigate financial flows involving human-trafficking networks and businesses that employ illegal immigrants. The agents could help arrest, detain and transport people.
The ask by Noem follows a broader effort by the Trump administration to deputize law-enforcement officials at various agencies to help carry out deportations. A previous memo granted immigration-enforcement authority to agencies at the Justice Department, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Internal Revenue Service’s criminal-investigation division, or IRS-CI, has 2,290 special agents, according to its most recent annual report, and that is up 10% since 2022. The tax agency has been adding enforcement staff, including criminal investigators, since the then-Democratic-controlled Congress voted in 2022 to expand the IRS and give it more resources.
President Trump and Republicans opposed that expansion, and the president has occasionally made offhand remarks about diverting IRS employees to the border. Trump has promised the largest mass-deportation campaign in U.S. history. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been trying to increase arrests in recent weeks.
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