Remember those 90,000 Internal Revenue Service agents that the agency sought to hire during the Biden presidency? It appears they might have new jobs soon.
President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of sending the newly-hired IRS agents to the southern border to help efforts to address the migrant crisis that began under Biden’s administration.
During a rally at Circa Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Trump indicated he was considering such a move. “They hired, or tried to hire, 88,000 workers to go after you and we’re in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them, or maybe we’ll move them to the border,” he declared.
The president further noted that he might move the agents to the border “where they are allowed to carry guns.”
🚨BREAKING: President Trump has HALTED the hiring of the 88,000 new IRS agents and will either terminate all of them or move them to the border.
— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) January 25, 2025
We are so blessed to have President Trump! pic.twitter.com/YxRlrjczen
Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order imposing a hiring freeze across several federal agencies, including the IRS. The freeze will remain in effect for the IRS until the Secretary of the Treasury determines that lifting the moratorium is in the “national interest.”
The IRS in 2023 announced it was looking for IRS employees who are authorized to carry firearms to aid in investigating financial crimes.
The “major duties” listed for the position say that agents will be trained to “follow the money” and prosecute any financial crimes.
“No matter what the source, all income earned, both legal and illegal, has the potential of becoming involved in crimes which fall within the investigative jurisdiction of the IRS Criminal Investigation. Because of the expertise required to conduct these complex financial investigations, IRS Special Agents are considered the premier financial investigators for the Federal government,” the website reads.
Additionally, agents must carry a gun and be prepared to protect themselves from physical attacks without any warning. The description for the role also cautions that the agent may face life-threatening situations forcing them to use a firearm.
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, allocated $80 billion in funding to the IRS, after which the agency announced it was hiring nearly 90,000 agents.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers have been crossing the southern border during Biden’s term in the White House. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 10.1 million enforcement encounters with migrants trying to gain entry into the country over the past four years.
CBP also indicated there were at least 1.7 million “getaways,” which refers to illegals who managed to evade the authorities over Biden’s term.
It’s not clear whether Trump was serious about moving IRS agents to the border or if he was simply trolling. But the sentiment is clear: Government should be focusing more on straightening out the nation’s immigration problems instead of looking for ways to extract more funds from the American people.