Hirsch, a small business owner from Long Island, was never accused of a crime. Yet he would not see his $446,651.11 again for nearly three years due to the IRS’s civil asset forfeiture program, which allows the agency to seize money without filing criminal charges and keep it, in many cases, indefinitely.

Under federal law, banks are required to report cash deposits exceeding $10,000 to the Treasury Department, and account holders are forbidden from “structuring” deposits smaller than the $10,000 threshold to avoid the reporting requirement. If the IRS suspects someone is “structuring” their deposits, it can take their money without filing a criminal complaint.

The program was designed to help the federal government intercept the drug trade during the 1980s “war on drugs.” But the IRS has increasingly gone after small business owners and others who make frequent, small deposits.

“These laws were intended to target drug dealers and other hardened criminals engaged in money laundering or other criminal activity,” said Robert Johnson, Hirsch’s attorney. “In practice, however, the IRS enforces the structuring laws against innocent Americans who have no idea that depositing less than $10,000 in the bank could possibly get them in trouble with the law.”

Hirsch owns and operates Bi-County Distributors, a small business that distributes products to convenience stores on Long Island. The company had multiple accounts closed due its frequent cash deposits, which—when more than $10,000—require burdensome paperwork from the bank. Hirsch’s accountant recommended staying below the limit, so Hirsch often made cash deposits under $10,000.

On the basis of civil asset forfeiture, the IRS seized Hirsch’s money in May 2012 and held it for more than two years without issuing any charges against him. Twice, Hirsch said, the government offered settlements that would require him to surrender “a substantial portion” of the money.

“I rejected these offers as I felt that I had done nothing wrong and should not be forced to give up my hard-earned money for no reason,” Hirsch said. “I lived with that stress for over two-and-a-half years.”

Hirsch said the seizure drove his business “to the edge of insolvency,” forcing him to take extended lines of credit. In an attempt to demonstrate his innocence, he paid an accounting firm $25,000 to audit his own business.

“Government officials did not question the results of the audit and did not suggest that they were in possession of any evidence of wrongdoing by anyone associated with the business,” Hirsch said. “Nonetheless, the government still refused to return the money.”

To get seized funds back, property owners have to go to court against the Department of Justice—often a lengthy and expensive process.

In January, after a front-page story on civil asset forfeiture was published in The New York Times, the government agreed to return Hirsch’s money.

“In this country, people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. But, in the eyes of the IRS, I was guilty until proven innocent—forced to prove my own innocence to get my property back,” Hirsch said. “No other American should be put through the nightmare I experienced.”

But Hirsch’s case is not unique.

Documents obtained by the Institute for Justice, a national law firm that litigates property rights, show that the IRS conducted more than 2,500 of these seizures from 2005 to 2012.

In that seven-year period, the agency collected more than $242 million in suspected structuring violations. At least a third of those seizures “arose from nothing more than a series of cash transactions under $10,000, with no other criminal activity alleged,” according to the report.

And under federal law, the IRS gets to keep this money. Funds seized through civil forfeiture are deposited in the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, which is available for use by the IRS without any appropriation by Congress.

“Shockingly, the government uses the money that it takes through civil forfeiture to pad the budgets of the very agencies that seize the money,” said Johnson, who also works for the Institute for Justice. “The result is a legal system in which the deck is stacked against ordinary Americans.”

While the issue went largely unnoticed until late last year, lawmakers on Capitol Hill—both Republican and Democrat—are now looking for change from the long-embattled agency.

The House Oversight Subcommittee’s first hearing of the new Congress called on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify. He was met with harsh criticism.

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., went so far as to compare civil asset forfeiture to torture. “You talk about waterboarding, this is waterboarding at its worst,” he said.

The IRS has promised to change. Koskinen apologized to the small business owners at the hearing and said the agency would no longer pursue civil seizure on structuring grounds “unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

“We’ve changed the policy from our standpoint,” Koskinen said.

But Johnson isn’t satisfied with the IRS’ promise.

“The only surefire reform of civil forfeiture is to eliminate the practice entirely, and to require all forfeiture to proceed under the criminal laws,” Johnson said. “Short of that, the IRS policy change—limiting application of the structuring laws to funds derived from illegal sources—should be codified in statute, and without any open-ended loophole for ‘exceptional’ cases.”

Many lawmakers also aren’t satisfied with the IRS’s “exceptional circumstances” standard.

In January, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., introduced a bill that would curb IRS forfeiture abuses by stopping the IRS from seizing funds without criminal charges and make it simpler and faster for innocent property owners to get their money back.

The bill is only in the primary stages of the legislative process, but some sort of remedial legislation is likely to receive support.

“It is wrong without any criminal evidence to seize anyone’s property,” Kelly said. “This flies in the face of everything we are as a country.”

“As Americans, I think we need to do some soul searching,” said Diane Foley, who has been outspoken since her son was beheaded by the extremist group while working as a freelancer for GlobalPost in Syria.

“Years ago, big news organizations would support foreign offices. But that’s not the case anymore because it’s been hard for print journalism. They’ve tried to find a different model to work off of,” Foley said. “Jim chose to be a freelancer, but in choosing to do that, it became increasingly dangerous.”

Diane Foley spoke Wednesday to reporters at the Medill School of Journalism’s Washington bureau, where her son studied in 2007. (Olivia Marcus)

Freelancers are often paid per story, which is less expensive than maintaining a news bureau; they sometimes report from the frontlines of combat zones with little to no security.

“Jim knew they were using him,” said Foley. “But he also knew and felt deeply that those stories had to be told. And he knew if he could share them with some of the big news organizations, the stories would get out there.”

James Foley was captured once before, in 2011, by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in Libya. But six weeks later—after public appeals from the media and the U.S. government—he was set free by Libyan authorities.

After her son was captured for the second time, Foley said the government and media didn’t do enough to help. U.S. hostage policy, which has come under fire in recent years for being unclear and inconsistent, apparently prevented the government from paying a ransom, and Foley said there was “no organized advocacy” from the American media.

Foley said other countries have a better track record when it comes to supporting freelancers who are captured abroad, noting the successful effort by French journalists who worked with their government to help secure the release of colleagues being held hostage by ISIS in 2014.

“I think he really believed that our country and the American media would be powerful enough to make it happen. And that didn’t happen,” Foley said, referring to the fact that her son was never released. “I feel strongly that we can do better. The American press can do better.”

Foley said the foundation she established in her son’s name, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, is working to support freelancers and will hold a conference on the topic and other issues in New York in May.

“We’re hoping that the foundation can get it out there. The public doesn’t know—I didn’t even know—how we get the news. It’s often a courageous freelancer who’s out there, who dares to stay there long enough to really know what’s going on.”

Foley spoke Wednesday to reporters at the Medill School of Journalism’s Washington bureau, where her son studied in 2007. Diane Foley was given the school’s medal for courage in journalism, renamed the James Foley Medill Medal of Courage, which was awarded to her son posthumously.

Foley lives in Rochester, New Hampshire with her husband John. James Foley was the oldest of their five children.