IRS data sharing with immigration authorities has turned the annual tax filing season into a trap for undocumented workers. The Trump administration’s crackdown could cost the U.S. up to $479 billion in lost tax revenue over a decade as enforcement fears deter workers from filing, according to tax experts cited by The Guardian. To recoup the costs of the machine, Department of Homeland Security officials are preparing to levy $18,000 fines on every migrant arrested or detained, per USA Today.

Federal officials told reporters they have already issued $36 billion in fines to approximately 65,000 people since January 2025. While the administration acknowledges it will likely never collect most of these debts, the policy serves as a mechanism to bar future legal return for those who cannot pay. This financialization of displacement turns the act of seeking asylum into a permanent debt obligation to the state.

This paper identifies this as 'Administrative Arbitrage'—the monetization of human misery to fund the very infrastructure that extracts it. While corporations like Sony and Costco receive billions in tariff refunds, the poorest residents of the country are being billed for their own imprisonment. As the federal government uses the Judgment Fund to pay its allies, it is attempting to balance the books on the backs of those it has already stripped of citizenship and safety.