IRS plan to give data to ICE could wallop California, where many immigrants pay taxes

One after another in recent weeks, Maria’s accounting clients raised the same fear: immigration agents finding and detaining them using information from their tax filings.

“I heard it from everybody,” said the 40-year-old consultant for undocumented small-business entrepreneurs in Southern California. “They come to me and they say, ‘Hey, should I do my taxes this year? Because they’re going to come find me.’”

Maria, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of being targeted by the Trump administration, said she understood well.

Maria has been in the U.S. for decades, has earned multiple degrees at California universities, has U.S. citizen children and has been applying for legal residency for years. But like many of her clients, she said, she lacks legal status.

Also like many of her clients, she has routinely paid U.S. taxes in the past using what’s known as an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, in lieu of a Social Security number. The process seemed pretty straightforward, she said, until recently, when Trump administration officials announced that IRS data would be shared with ICE agents and used to target undocumented taxpayers for the first time.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-04-12/irs-plan-to-give-data-to-ice-could-wallop-california-where-many-immigrants-pay-taxes