DENVER—Colorado authorities say they did not violate anyone’s privacy rights when they seized thousands of tax documents to investigate undocumented immigrants for identity theft.
In a late Monday filing, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and Sheriff John Cook also said a judge erred in halting the probe.
They asked the Colorado Supreme Court to overturn the April ruling by District Court Judge James Hiatt and argued there is substantial evidence that hundreds of undocumented immigrants were stealing people’s identities to file their taxes through a tax preparer.
Immigration experts say it was the first and only time authorities have used confidential records from an income tax preparer to prosecute undocumented immigrants.
The Internal Revenue service requires everyone who earns income in the U.S. to file taxes regardless of legal status, and undocumented immigrants have a tax liability of billions of dollars.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to end the investigation, has until Aug. 28 to respond to Buck and Cook.
Weld County launched Operation Numbers Game after a Texas man reported his identity was being used. The suspect in that case told authorities he had filed his taxes through a business widely used by immigrants in Greeley.
In October, authorities obtained a search warrant and seized the firm’s computers and thousands of tax documents.
Buck filed identity theft and criminal impersonation charges against more than 70 people. He said as many as 1,300 undocumented immigrants in the area were using false or stolen Social Security numbers.
The ACLU’s lawsuit argued authorities had violated privacy rights. Hiatt ruled for the ACLU, saying the county lacked probable cause for the raid, that it was too broad, and that tax records are confidential. Other Weld County judges with cases from Operation Numbers Game agreed.
Prosecutors dismissed many of the cases without prejudice, giving them the option to file charges again. But some defendants had pleaded guilty and face deportation.
Those charged allegedly used others’ Social Security numbers to work, and Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers to pay taxes.
Weld County argued in its appeal it was impossible to identify individual suspects in the search warrant because the case centered on identity theft.
Buck, a Republican who is expected to run against Democrat Michael Bennet for his U.S. Senate seat, is known for his staunch stand against illegal immigration. But he has maintained Operation Numbers Game was about identity theft, not immigration.
In an unrelated case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in May that undocumented workers can be considered identity thieves only if authorities prove they knew they were using someone else’s Social Security number.
