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They Paid $96.7 Billion in Taxes. The Government Told Them to Leave.

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$96.7 Billion in Taxes. Zero Eligibility for Benefits.

Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. That includes $59.4 billion to the federal government and $37.3 billion to state and local governments. Nearly 4 million tax returns that year included an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number instead of a Social Security number. Those filers are ineligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, most federal benefits, and Social Security retirement payments. They file anyway.

$96.7 billion in taxes paid. $25.7 billion into Social Security. $6.4 billion into Medicare. None of it comes back to them.

Maria Trejo is 66 years old. She has paid taxes with an ITIN for 15 years while working as a contractor doing administrative work and packing fruit and fish for a temp agency. In 2025, she owed $1,200 in federal taxes and planned to pay it despite receiving no benefits and living in fear of deportation.

The IRS Started Sharing Their Data With ICE

On April 7, 2025, the IRS and ICE signed a memorandum of understanding allowing ICE to request names, addresses, and tax filing data for people under final removal orders or federal criminal investigation. ICE requested records on more than 1 million people. The IRS disclosed data on 47,000 taxpayers by August 2025.

A federal court in D.C. ordered a stay in November 2025. A Massachusetts court prohibited DHS from using the data in February 2026. Then a D.C. appeals court allowed sharing to continue. The case is heading toward the Supreme Court.

The message to immigrant taxpayers is straightforward. Filing your taxes is now a deportation risk.

Elgardo, an undocumented immigrant in Boston, has paid taxes for seven consecutive years with an ITIN as an assistant manager at a car wash. He receives no tax rebates. Claudia, who has lived in California for over 20 years, would not give her full name because her immigration status puts her at risk. Both keep filing because they were told it would help their case if they ever applied for legal status.

$25.7 Billion Into Social Security They Cannot Collect

Undocumented workers paid $25.7 billion into Social Security in 2022, plus $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance. They are barred from collecting any of it.

The Social Security Administration’s Earnings Suspense File holds $952.4 billion in cumulative wages since 1990 that cannot be matched to valid Social Security numbers. Most of this comes from undocumented workers. The Congressional Budget Office projects that immigration will boost Social Security revenues by $348 billion between 2024 and 2034. Over the same period, those workers will collect about $1 billion in benefits.

The effective state and local tax rate for undocumented immigrants is 8.9% of income. That is higher than what the wealthiest 1% of Americans pay in state and local taxes.

The OBBBA Cut Their Kids Out of the Child Tax Credit

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated Child Tax Credit eligibility for families where the filer uses an ITIN instead of a Social Security number, even if the child is a U.S. citizen with a valid SSN. Both the parent and the child must have Social Security numbers to qualify for the $2,200-per-child credit starting in 2025.

This is a tax increase on citizen children because their parents are undocumented. The children did not choose their parents’ immigration status. Congress chose to punish them for it.

What Happens When They Leave

The Peterson Institute estimates that deporting 8.3 million undocumented immigrants would reduce GDP by 7.4% and employment by 7% by 2028. Penn Wharton projects a $187.4 billion decrease in tax revenue from 2025 to 2034 and a federal deficit increase of $270 to $350 billion.

Agriculture lost 155,000 workers from March to July 2025 compared to a 2.2% employment increase in the same period the year before. States with the highest concentration of undocumented construction workers saw a 0.1% drop in construction employment while other states saw a 1.9% increase.

The math on deportation is simple. It costs $70,236 per person to deport someone, and then the government loses the taxes they were paying. Penn Wharton estimates mass deportation would cost $900 billion over 10 years while simultaneously reducing the revenue needed to pay for it.

What You Can Do

  1. Call your U.S. senators and demand they oppose IRS-ICE data sharing. Taxpayer privacy is the foundation of voluntary tax compliance. Without it, revenue collection collapses.
  2. If you know immigrant taxpayers, connect them with free tax preparation services that understand ITIN filing. Many have stopped filing out of fear.
  3. Share the numbers. $96.7 billion in taxes. $25.7 billion in Social Security. $952.4 billion in the Earnings Suspense File. The economic argument against deportation is as strong as the moral one.

Read more on the Immigration hub and the OBBBA analysis.

Primary Sources