ICE appears to be buying immigrants’ tax identifiers from a data broker
A $10 million ICE procurement reviewed by 404 Media shows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bought records tied to immigrants' tax identifiers, including Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, from a private data broker. The acquisition targets data linked to names, addresses, and ITINs, information that federal judges previously barred the IRS from sharing with Homeland Security when they struck down an IRS-Homeland Security data-sharing agreement as illegal. Buying the same datasets from private brokers would circumvent statutory taxpayer privacy protections and a court order and supply ICE with the same identifying information it could not obtain directly from the IRS. That matters because ITIN-linked datasets would let ICE more precisely identify and locate noncitizens, potentially accelerating deportations and raising significant legal and privacy concerns.
NEW: A $10 million procurement reviewed by 404 Media indicates ICE is buying records related to immigrants’ tax identifiers. “It looks for all the world like Trump is trying to skirt the law and a court order to fuel his mass-deportation campaign,” @wyden.senate.gov said.
404 Media63“A court has already struck down an agreement between the IRS and Homeland Security to illegally share ITINs and other personal information. A contract to buy that same information from private data brokers is a clear end-around both taxpayer privacy laws and a court order.”
Jay-So 🇵🇷9So, to be clear, the immigrants who work *off the books* and don't pay taxes would remain and not be harassed instead of the ones that are on the books and pay into the system without reaping the benefits. Is that correct?
The Privacy Singularity4Privacy really is needed more than ever. Are you going to let your government track every single thing about you?
Brandi in Occupied Minnesota4So, my best guess here is that this is Equifax credit data being resold and it's a genuine serious question if this puts Equifax in breach of any privacy laws and whether ThunderCat is breaching their data licensing agreement by engaging in a prohibited resale. @josephcox.bsky.social
BetsyStansell3Gee, can anyone do this? Buy up tax identifying numbers?
Nelson Rare Books3How do data brokers obtain the ITINs in the first place?!
Nevertheless, She Persisted2So then immigrants DO pay taxes. Funny how republicans say they want to remove immigrants for being a burden on the economy, when they pay more in taxes than Amazon does. I wonder why.... 🤔 (we all know why)
