USPS law enforcement assists Trump ‘mass deportation’ effort, sources and records show
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has quietly begun cooperating with federal immigration officials to locate people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to two people familiar with the matter and documents obtained by The Washington Post — dramatically broadening the scope of the Trump administration’s governmentwide mass deportation campaign.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a little-known police and investigative force for the mail agency, recently joined a Department of Homeland Security task force geared toward finding, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals.
Immigration officials are seeking photographs of the outside of envelopes and packages — an Inspection Service program known as “mail covers” — and access to the postal investigation agency’s broad surveillance systems, including Postal Service online account data, package- and mail-tracking information, credit card data and financial material and IP addresses, the people said.
The postal collaboration is a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Homeland Security officials have previously partnered with tax, housing and public health authorities. But the involvement of the Postal Inspection Service, the nation’s oldest law enforcement agency, means efforts to pursue undocumented immigrants have expanded into one of the most mundane government activities: delivering the mail.
The Postal Inspection Service is primarily tasked with maintaining the safety of the mail system, investigating threats and attacks on postal workers and mail facilities and keeping illegal items — such narcotics and child pornography — out of the mail.
The agency is staffed by about 1,700 officers, according to its most recent annual report, including 1,250 inspectors who conduct investigations and 450 police officers who provide physical security. The Postal Service in 2020 scaled back the role of police officer, restricting their jurisdiction to postal property and preventing them from conducting patrols or accompanying mail carriers on their rounds.
Postal Inspection Service leaders, wary of signals from the administration that it could seize control of the Postal Service more broadly, agreed to participate in the program, according to the people and records.
“We want to play well in the sandbox,” read an Inspection Service email obtained by The Post, which summarized a recent meeting with immigration officials.
Postal inspectors participated in a recent drug enforcement and immigration raid in Colorado Springs on Sunday, according to video of the event posted on social media. Agents from other federal agencies, including the FBI and Internal Revenue Service, also participated. That operation resulted in the arrest of more than 100 undocumented immigrants, local law enforcement officials said.
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Postal Service representatives did not comment.
It is not unusual for the Inspection Service to take part in raids or multiagency operations. Postal inspectors, for example, arrested Trump adviser Stephen Bannon on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut in 2020 after he was indicted on criminal fraud charges. Trump pardoned Bannon in one of the final official acts of his first term.
But its involvement in immigration enforcement is new. The shift follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to include all federal law enforcement agencies in locating and deporting immigrants, the records obtained by The Post show.
“The Inspection Service is very, very nervous about this,” one of the people familiar with the matter said. “They seem to be trying to placate Trump by getting involved with things they think he’d like. But it’s complete overreach. This is the Postal Service. Why are they involved in deporting people?”
The postal involvement is the latest push by the Trump administration to repurpose federal agencies and their data in a bid to boost immigration enforcement. Within the past month, the U.S. DOGE Service, Trump’s government efficiency office, has won permission to access sensitive immigration case data at the Justice Department, sought Medicare claims data to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement find the addresses of undocumented immigrants, and initiated efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to locate and evict immigrants from public housing.
The administration also this month classified 6,000 living immigrants as dead within a Social Security death database, hoping the migrants would “self-deport,” The Post reported.
Trump has expressed keen interest in overhauling the Postal Service and bringing the agency under closer control of the White House, beyond just immigration enforcement. Before he took office, he floated privatizing the agency and has since said he hopes to merge it with the Commerce Department, a move that would require congressional approval.
Senior administration officials moved to oust Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in March, The Post reported, and Trump has considered dissolving the agency’s governing board.