Illegal immigrants filing taxes more than ever

“It serves no other purpose,” she said, “and was never intended to serve any other purposes.”

Nor does the IRS share immigrants’ personal information with ICE or any other agency, Mathis said.

To avoid any resemblance with Social Security cards, the IRS stopped issuing cards and instead sends a letter bearing the tax ID number. Still, these numbers do end up being put to other uses by a population eager for any form of official ID, and by companies interested in doing business with them.

Many banks now allow illegal immigrants to open an account with their ITIN, and Bank of America has a pilot program in Los Angeles that allows customers to use the numbers to sign up for a credit card. Others have created mortgage products for ITIN-bearing immigrants, including Citibank, which offers one in partnership with ACORN Housing Corp.

“They want to go forward, work, be a normal taxpayer,” said Erica Gonzalez, a staffer in ACORN’s Fresno office, where demand for the tax ID has shot up in recent years. “If they want to establish themselves here, this lets them do that.”

Five states — West Virginia, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, and Illinois — also allow ITINs to be used as identification for a drivers’ license.

This is what rankles the system’s critics.

“The IRS never anticipated this phenomenon,” said Dinerstein. “They thought it was going to be some boring tax compliance number.”

To Ben Johnson, director of the Immigration Policy Center at the nonpartisan American Immigration Law Foundation, the widespread use of tax ID numbers is another sign that the immigration system is broken.

“The U.S. economy hangs a huge ’help wanted’ sign at the border, and they come to work, not to hide,” he said. “A lot of people struggle with the idea they’re here without permission, and want to find a way to operate legitimately, like a normal hardworking person.”

Judging by the crowded waiting room at Esteban Ramirez’s modest tax preparation office in Richmond, where a television blared Spanish-language soap operas, it’s clear undocumented immigrants are growing increasingly comfortable around a Form 1040.

Some are interested in getting refunds, like the approximately 80 percent of tax filers who get them each year. Although ITIN users don’t qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which could give a break to an American earning in the same bracket, they can get other tax credits, and can use ITINs to claim dependents in Mexico.

At the end of his session with Ramirez, 18-year-old Diaz found he would have to pay, as he’d expected.

The $800 payment is steep, he said. But if it helps him to build a lawful life in the United States — a life he hopes will include his own janitorial business, and in the future, college — it’s worth it.

“It’s better to stay on the right side of the law,” he said.