I.R.S. Prepares to Help ICE Find Immigrants Targeted for Deportation

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to help homeland security officials locate immigrants they are trying to deport, according to three officials familiar with the matter, in a shift toward using protected taxpayer information to help President Trump’s mass deportation push.

Under a draft of an agreement between the I.R.S. and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the tax agency would verify whether immigration officials had the right home address for people who have been ordered to leave the United States, according to a copy of the document viewed by The New York Times.

Many undocumented immigrants file tax returns with the I.R.S., giving the agency information about where they live, their families, their employers and their earnings. The I.R.S. has long encouraged undocumented immigrants to pay their taxes, giving people without Social Security numbers a separate nine-digit code called an individual taxpayer identification number to file their returns.

Tax information is closely guarded because federal law bars improper disclosure. I.R.S. officials had resisted earlier requests from the Department of Homeland Security to turn over information about unauthorized immigrants, warning that doing so could violate federal law.

But the Trump administration has since replaced the top I.R.S. lawyer, and the agreement now under discussion appears to be narrower than an earlier request, which asked the I.R.S. to hand over, rather than confirm, migrants’ addresses.

Officials were still finalizing the agreement, the terms of which were earlier reported by The Washington Post. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., did not respond to a request for comment. ICE also did not respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly tried to enlist I.R.S. agents in its broad immigration crackdown, asking them to audit companies that might be hiring unauthorized immigrants.