Twelve years ago, Frida Adame unknowingly launched her career outside downtown Houston’s outdoor ice rink in Discovery Green park, helping her mom make some extra money during the holidays. 

“My mom used to stand on that corner right over there selling trinket lights,” she said. “I used to stand right on that corner and sing, ‘lights, lights, $5.’” 

Adame, 29, spent so much time around rink that the operations manager encouraged her to get a job there.

“Of course, he didn’t know that I didn’t have legal documentation to work,” Adame said.  

At the time, Adame — who emigrated from Mexico as a kid — was eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, so a security guard at the rink gave her the money for her application fee. Once approved, she got a work permit and temporary protection from deportation under the program. 

“I started to get my new job with my Social, because I do get a Social Security [number] through DACA. I started filing my own taxes,” she said.  

Since then, Adame has worked her way up, from skate attendant to project manager for the company that runs the ice and roller skating rink, and other rinks across the country. Her contributions far surpass her first working years, when she earned around $8 an hour.  

“This year, I believe I had to pay back $2,500” to the IRS, she said. That’s in addition to what was taken out of her paycheck. These are taxes she pays even though she’s not eligible for benefits like federally funded Medicaid or Social Security. 

Millions of undocumented immigrants pay taxes every year, including DACA recipients like Adame. And the confidentiality of the addresses and other personal data submitted to the IRS by taxpaying undocumented immigrants has remained protected for decades. 

But the Donald Trump administration is looking to change that, challenging a decadeslong firewall around taxpayer data. In March, The Washington Post reported on a plan to share IRS data with immigration officials to carry out deportations.

Section 6103 of the U.S. tax code protects all taxpayers, including undocumented immigrants, from having their data shared with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, according to law professor Shayak Sarkar of the University of California, Davis. 

“That allows for people to now provide the IRS detailed information on their income and on themselves, without concern that it will be shared with other people, agencies, congressional committees, except under the narrowest of circumstances,” Sarkar said. 

Taxpayer privacy provisions are strong, in part thanks to laws that came after the Richard Nixon administration weaponized IRS data against political enemies. 

“But as with other unprecedented actions, it’s going to require the courts to assert the importance of Congress’ will in the statute and the importance of the regulatory framework that has emerged from it,” he said. 

The longstanding protections around tax data have encouraged anxious immigrant families to comply with their legal obligation to file taxes. In 2022, an estimated $97 billion was paid by undocumented immigrants in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Jackie Vimo, a political science professor at Montclair State University, has helped those families directly with their taxes for decades. 

“I have told people to their faces, told their families, in presence of their children and their spouses, that their information is absolutely safe,” they said. 

Vimo is not making the same assurances this year. 

“I can’t, in good conscience, advise people that it’s safe to file their taxes anymore,” they said. “This sets a dangerous precedent that no one’s information is secure.”

“It’s a catch-22,” said Ana Guajardo, executive director of the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos workers center in Illinois. The group is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last month to prevent the IRS from sharing data about undocumented immigrants. 

“You’re trying to force people to be in a situation where they’re not obeying the laws that they’re trying to follow, and then later you want to find ways that you’re going to deport them for not following them,” she said. 

Guajardo expects any move to share data with the Department of Homeland Security will discourage immigrants from filing taxes. 

It’s a puzzling move considering the fiscal implications, according to the Cato Institute’s vice president for economic and social policy studies, Alex Nowrasteh. 

“Reducing the amount of taxpayers paying into those programs who are not going to receive benefits is a really foolish thing to do,” Nowrasteh said. 

And Frida Adame, who first filed taxes while working at the Houston ice rink, thinks most immigrants will continue to file their taxes anyway.  

“We’re not looking for a free ride. We’re looking to do things right,” Adame said.  

The IRS and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on this story.