Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the department's Washington, D.C., headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The IRS and Department of Homeland Security reached an agreement Monday to share tax information of immigrants who have final orders of removal to help immigration agents find and deport the immigrants, according to documents filed in court.
No information between the two agencies has been shared yet, according to the filings in federal court in the District of Columbia, but the partnership would impact more than 1 million immigrants with final removal orders, as the Trump administration carries out mass deportations of immigrants without permanent legal status.
According to a memorandum of understanding signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and submitted to the court, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can ask the IRS to provide information about immigrants with orders of removal or immigrants involved in criminal investigations.
Some of that tax information includes sensitive details such as current addresses and information about child tax dependents.
It would be the first time the IRS shared sensitive tax information to carry out immigration enforcement.
In order to file taxes without a social security number, someone who is not a U.S. citizen would use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or an ITIN. As of 2022, there were more than 5.8 million active ITINs, according to a report by the Treasury Department Inspect General.
Groups challenging information sharing
The government filed the document in a case brought by immigration rights groups the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. The groups are trying to block the IRS from sharing tax records with DHS for immigration enforcement, arguing that such sharing violates IRS disclosure laws.
The Trump administration moved Monday to dismiss the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that “providing information to assist criminal investigations—is lawful.”
A hearing on a preliminary injunction to block such information sharing between IRS and DHS is set for April 16 before federal Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017.
Friedrich ruled against the groups last month, when they asked for a temporary restraining order following a story by The Washington Post that the agencies were considering sharing information in order to find immigrants to deport.
“A single news report about future cooperation between the IRS and DHS does not establish that the plaintiffs’ members are facing imminent injury,” according to the March 19 order.
A man holds the Ukrainian and U.S. flags at a ceremony at the Holodomor Genocide Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, 2025, as the three-year anniversary of the Russian invasion neared. The memorial honors victims of a famine in Ukraine in 1932-33. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Unknown numbers of Ukrainians received emails by mistake from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security saying their humanitarian protected status was being revoked and they would have to leave the United States within days, the agency said Friday.
“A message was sent in error to some Ukrainians under the U4U program. The U4U parole program has not been terminated,” a DHS spokesperson told States Newsroom, referring to the Uniting for Ukraine program.
Attorneys challenging the Trump administration’s pause of humanitarian applications for Ukrainians and Afghans, as well as the end of legal status programs for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, filed a copy of the termination notice sent to Ukrainians in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Friday.
The notice, given on Thursday, instructs any Ukrainians in the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian parole program to leave the U.S. within seven days of receiving the notice, according to court filings.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” according to the notice sent to some Ukrainians that immigration rights groups filed in court. “If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States — unless you have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here.”
The next hearing is set for Monday before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
‘Numerous reports’ of erroneous emails
“Plaintiffs’ counsel have received numerous reports throughout the day today that other Ukrainian members of the putative class—potentially thousands—have received an identical letter, including individuals with approximately two years left on their parole period,” according to the brief by Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights group.
According to the brief filed Friday, attorneys with the Justice Action Center notified the Department of Justice attorneys handling the case. The lawyers said the response from those DOJ attorneys was “to say that they ‘have been looking into this’ but ‘don’t have any information to share yet.’”
The Biden administration’s renewed work and deportation protections for 103,700 Ukrainians are set to expire on Oct. 19, 2026.
Trump and Zelenskyy
In late February, President Donald Trump got into a heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting at the White House, breaking with Ukraine and its resistance to Russia’s invasion more than three years ago.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration created temporary protections for Ukrainians because of Russia’s invasion of the country.
Trump’s history with Ukraine, which was at the center of his first impeachment when he halted security aid approved by Congress, and his friendly relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, have moved the U.S. further away from European allies who have coalesced around Ukraine’s fight for its democracy.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in early March denied that the Trump administration was revoking protections for Ukrainians.
“The truth: no decision has been made at this time,” Leavitt wrote on social media.
People bag sand in preparation for possible flooding as Tropical Storm Helene, which later became Hurricane Helene, headed toward the state's Gulf Coast on Sept. 25, 2024, in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
A bipartisan pair of Florida U.S. House members introduced a bill Monday to remove the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Department of Homeland Security and elevate it to an independent Cabinet-level agency.
Democrat Jared Moskowitz and Republican Byron Donalds filed the bill Monday, with Moskowitz saying divorcing FEMA from the bureaucracy at DHS would lead to better outcomes for disaster preparedness and response.
The agency’s mission requires haste, but its workers are too often bogged down in unrelated DHS work, Moskowitz said.
“By removing FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restoring its status as an independent, Cabinet-level agency, my bipartisan bill will help cut red tape, improve government efficiency, and save lives,” he said in a Monday statement. “It will also help refocus FEMA on its original mission: as an agency tasked with responding before, during, and after disaster events.”
In a statement issued by Moskowitz’s office, Donalds added DHS had become “overly bureaucratic” and “overly political.”
“When disaster strikes, quick and effective action must be the standard––not the exception,” Donalds said. “It is imperative that FEMA is removed from the bureaucratic labyrinth of DHS and instead is designated to report directly to the President of the United States.”
Law creating agency
FEMA, which coordinates federal disaster relief efforts, was moved to DHS at that department’s 2003 inception after President Jimmy Carter signed the law creating FEMA in 1979.
President Bill Clinton made FEMA a Cabinet-level agency, but President George W. Bush did not renew that status.
Moskowitz, a former state emergency management director under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been a consistent advocate for funding FEMA while also calling for reforms to the agency.
FEMA is a frequent object of criticism from lawmakers of both parties and has often been targeted for overhaul.
Moskowitz, who led a similar bill last year, has argued making the agency independent of contentious issues like immigration, which DHS is primarily responsible for, would free it to better focus on its core mission.
“For an agency that needs to be fast, it can’t function in an agency of 22 others,” Moskowitz said at a March 4 hearing. “They shouldn’t be involved in immigration, but why are they? Because Homeland is using FEMA to run every grant of every agency … within Homeland. Half of FEMA’s personnel now are running grants.”
He has pitched the issue as nonpartisan, saying at the hearing that both red and blue states are subject to natural disasters and need aid from the federal government.
The endorsement of Donalds, a loyal backer of President Donald Trump and the Trump-endorsed candidate to succeed DeSantis as governor in the 2026 election, appears designed to win support from across the House’s vast ideological spectrum.
At odds with DOGE?
Trump, though, may be more inclined to undercut the agency than to promote it.
Since retaking office in January, Trump and influential adviser Elon Musk have aggressively sought to reduce the federal bureaucracy, slashing staff, eliminating directives and – in the case of the Education Department – moving to close an entire department.
Moskowitz became the first Democrat to join the Congressional Department of Government Efficiency Caucus in December, aligning himself with Musk’s mission to make government more efficient. In his announcement, he cited DHS’s hosting of FEMA as an example of an overextended bureaucracy.
For education, Trump said shuttering the federal department would allow states to be more active in policymaking.
Last week, he made a similar move involving FEMA, signing an executive order to enhance the state and local government roles in disaster preparedness.
The order calls for an administration official to recommend “revisions, recissions, and replacements necessary to reformulate the process and metrics for Federal responsibility.”
The Wisconsin Assembly voted along party lines Tuesday to pass legislation penalizing counties with sheriff's departments that don't cooperate with ICE, the federal Immigration Customers and Enforcement agency. (Photo via ICE)
Legislation passed the Assembly Tuesday that would claw back state aid from counties where the sheriff doesn’t cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE).
The legislation would require sheriffs to check the citizenship status of people being held in jail on felony charges and notify federal immigration enforcement officials if citizenship cannot be verified.
The state Senate, meanwhile, approved a bill that would block a judicial investigation of a police officer involved in the death of a person unless there’s new evidence or evidence that has not been previously addressed in court.
The immigration-related bill,AB 24, passed the Assembly on a straight party-line vote.
In addition to requiring citizenship checks, the bill would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people in jail. Counties would be required to certify annually that they were following the law and would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state if they were not.
Proponents described the measure as enhancing safety.
“We have the opportunity to emulate in many ways the best practices that are already happening across our country,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the bill’s author, said at a news conference before the floor session. “We have seen since [President] Donald Trump took office that we have had a dramatic reduction in the number of illegal crossings that are happening at the southern border.”
Opponents said the bill would divert local law enforcement resources while driving up mistrust and fear among immigrants, regardless of their legal status.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said the legislation was “big government” and interferes with local counties’ policy decisions. It also undermines the presumption of innocence for a person charged with a crime, potentially strains resources for local jails, and could lead to holding people “longer than is necessary,” he said.
But he added that those weren’t his top reasons for opposing the bill.
“I’m voting against this because it’s wrong, because this legislation rips people from our communities and families based on the mere accusation of a crime, because our Republicans colleagues’ eagerness to make themselves tools in Trump’s attacks on immigrants, refugees, visitors and those who oppose him is vile,” Clancy said.
On the floor, Vos replied that he agreed with Clancy about the presumption of innocence, and that he also agreed with other lawmakers who said the vast majority of immigrants are not guilty of any crime.
“But I would also say that there is a burden of proof on both sides,” Vos said. “It’s not entirely on just the side of the government to ensure that you follow the law.”
Claiming broad bipartisan support for the measure, Vos said Democratic opposition was “clearly out of step, even with your base.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) responded that he hasn’t heard constituents ask for the legislation or anything like it.
“They are asking us explicitly to make life tangibly easier for working class Wisconsinites,” he said, “and they have not been asking me to engage in redundant acts of political theater to satisfy the whims of a rogue president engaging in a campaign of intimidation and mass deportation that includes constituents in western Wisconsin.”
In Wisconsin, if a district attorney chooses not to file criminal charges, a judge may hold a hearing — known as a John Doe investigation — on the matter and file a complaint based on the findings of that hearing.
The legislation,SB 25, “simply says, if that case goes before a DA, and then the DA justifies their actions and they are deemed to be innocent of any wrongdoing … that case is closed and it is in a file never to be seen again,” said the bill’s author, Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), on the Senate floor.
Hutton said the legislation allows a judicial investigation to proceed, however, “if a new piece of evidence is presented that wasn’t known before, or an unused piece of evidence is found.”
But Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) questioned carving out an exemption to the state’s John Doe law. “This bill does not apply to any other crime in Wisconsin,” she said.
Lawmakers, Drake added, should do more to address “the environment and the situations” that have led to officer-involved deaths.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), said testimony at the bill’s public hearing discussed only two attempts to invoke the John Doe proceeding after a prosecutor declined to file charges in an officer-involved death — and one of them involved former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah, who killed three people in five years.
Allowing for a John Doe investigation in an officer-involved death “protects the public,” Johnson said. “What it does is put a second eye on those cases that deserve a second look.”
The Senate passed the bill 19-13. Two Democrats, Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), voted in favor along with 17 Republicans. Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), who also opposed the bill in committee, joined the remaining Democrats who voted against the measure.
Reversing DPI testing standards: On a vote of 18-14 along party lines, the Senate concurred in an Assembly bill that would reverse a change that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) made last year totesting standards.
AB 1 would revert the state’s testing standards to what they were in 2019 and link standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Republicans voting for the bill said that the DPI change “lowered” standards — a claim DPI and Democrats rejected.
Direct primary care passes — but Democrats object: The Senate also voted 18-14 on party lines to passSB 4, legislation that would clear the way for health care providers who participate indirect primary care arrangements. Under direct primary care, doctors treat patients who subscribe to their services for a monthly fee as an alternative to health insurance for primary care.
An amendment Democrats offered would have added a list of enumerated civil rights protections for direct primary care patients. That list was in a direct primary care bill in the 2023-24 legislative session that passed the Assembly but stalled in the Senate when two organizations protested language protecting “gender identity.”
After the amendment was rejected, also on a party-line vote, Democrats voted against the final bill.
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