The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is building a computer program that would give immigration enforcement officials “on demand” access to the confidential tax data of immigrants, report William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro for ProPublica.
The IRS expects to operationalize their system to share millions of tax records with Department of Homeland Security personnel by the end of July, the ProPublica team highlights.
They also note that engineers at the IRS have voiced concerns that the mass data sharing effort could lead to immigration enforcement officers receiving outdated addresses and targeting the wrong people.
Separately, many young immigrants face uncertainty after the administration ended a measure to automatically issue work authorization and deportation protections to those who faced abuse, neglect, or abandonment in their home countries, reports Albinson Linares of NBC News.
Recipients of the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) visa already wait for years to receive a green card. The recent changes further complicate the process, Linares notes.
Rodrigo Sandoval, a recent high school graduate in South Carolina fled El Salvador as a child when gangs threatened his life. He is now working two jobs to make the most of his work permit, which expires next year. He’s still hopeful: “My message to people is to keep fighting and keep dreaming big.”
Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Clara Villatoro, the Forum’s assistant VP of strategic communications, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Callie Jacobson, Broc Murphy and Marcela Aguirre. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
RIPPLE EFFECT — A new UC Merced analysis found that the increase of the administration’s immigration enforcement in California led to the second steepest decline in private-sector employment, reports Levi Sumagaysay of CalMatters. Specifically, the report noted a 3.1% decline, with approximately 271,541 citizens and 193,428 non-citizens losing their jobs. Meanwhile, according to the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, over half of the Mexicans recently detained in the city have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade, report Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sanchez Vidal of the Los Angeles Times.
NO CONNECTIONS — A young man who was born in a refugee camp in Nepal is now stateless after the U.S. government deported him to Bhutan, a country he’s never lived in and who’s government is now telling him to leave, reports Juliana Kim of NPR. Additionally, five men were deported from the United States to the African kingdom of Eswatini, a place they have no connection to, report Gerald Imray and Michelle Gumede of the Associated Press. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed this expansion of the third-country deportations and said that the men deported were convicted criminals.
CALL FOR SOLUTIONS — Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski is calling on Congress to expand legal pathways for undocumented immigrants without criminal records and also warned that removing immigrant workers would deepen labor shortages, reports Tyler Arnold of the Catholic News Agency. Similarly, a coalition of evangelical organizations are supporting the Dignity Act, a bipartisan immigration solution introduced in Congress, reports Ivey DeJesus of Pennlive.com. And, in her op-ed for USA Today, Rev. Tanya Lopez details the negative impact immigration enforcement is having on faith communities, highlighting a recent detention near her church.
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES — A recent report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found the administration's immigration policies will likely cause the U.S. GDP growth to shrink for the first time in decades, reports Sasha Rogelberg of Fortune. The report warns about the economic tradeoffs of mass deportations, where the U.S. economy could potentially see an annual loss of $70.5 billion to $94 billion. Rogelberg also notes the negative consequences U.S. businesses are already facing as the labor force shrinks.
