A Taxing Policy

In general, it’s a bad time to be an immigrant and a pretty decent time to be a tax dodger. “President Donald Trump’s administration has carried out a sweeping overhaul of U.S. law enforcement this year, forcing out scores of attorneys and focusing large sections of the Justice Department on tracking ​down immigrants. Its retreat from tax enforcement illustrates the toll that shift has taken on other crime-fighting efforts.” Exclusive-Tax prosecutions plunge as Trump shifts crime-fighting efforts.

+ WaPo (Gift Article): DHS inks contract to create its own fleet of 737 jets for deportations. “The agency will spend nearly $140 million to buy the planes, funding that comes from a massive budget increase for immigration enforcement approved by Congress.”

+ Of course, the shift of resources to deportation efforts will have an impact on many other crime and terrorism fighting efforts. The question is, to what end? “Trump’s push for the largest mass deportation in history has had an outsized impact on the child care field, which is heavily reliant on immigrants and already strained by a worker shortage. Immigrant child care workers and preschool teachers, the majority of whom are working and living in the U.S. legally, say they are wracked by anxiety over possible encounters with ICE officials. Some have left the field, and others have been forced out by changes to immigration policy.” Trump’s crackdown on immigration is taking a toll on child care workers. (Feel safer?)