The Trump administration may use the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to expose illegal aliens working in U.S. jobs, according to the New York Times.
Three people familiar with discussions surrounding the IRS’s individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) told the New York Times that the administration is suggesting that the agency “differentiate codes for undocumented immigrants from those of other people with ITINs.”
ITINs are used by “people living abroad who owe U.S. taxes, some immigrants with legal status,” along with illegal aliens, according to the outlet:
Currently, a relatively large pool of people can receive an ITIN to put on their tax returns. It includes people living abroad who owe U.S. taxes, some immigrants with legal status and those without it. The codes can also be used to open a bank account, apply for a credit card and, in some states, get a driver’s license.
The change under discussion would differentiate codes for undocumented immigrants from those of other people with ITINs, the people said. Such a shift could require people applying for the codes to explicitly reveal their immigration status to the I.R.S., potentially discouraging them from getting a code or filing their taxes at all.
The sources explained that the idea to expose the tax codes used by illegal aliens stems from the idea that President Donald Trump’s administration suggested that there be a question on tax forms asking people their legal status in the United States.
Breitbart News’s John Binder reported in November 2025 that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the District of Columbia issued a temporary halt of the Trump administration’s IRS “helping” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), by providing them with tax information so they could “locate illegal aliens.”
At the time, Kollar-Kotelly argued that “Plaintiffs have shown a substantial likelihood that both the IRS’s implementation of the Address-Sharing Policy and its subsequent sharing of taxpayer information with ICE were unlawful under the [Administrative Procedure Act (APA)].”
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