In a strange twist, the Weld County Sherriff’s Department in Colorado, in its campaign to crack down on illegal immigrants, has found itself in conflict with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). From the point-of-view of the IRS, many illegal immigrants are not so bad because they pay taxes. According to the IRS, illegal immigrants contributed almost $50 billion in taxes from 1996 to 2003 alone. The Weld County sheriffs point out that many illegal immigrants use stolen Social Security numbers to obtain jobs, and accuse the IRS of turning its back on the practice in order to increase revenues. In fact, since 1996, the IRS has issued 15 million Individual Identification Numbers to people without Social Security numbers to enable them to pay taxes.