BS BULLETIN:
- A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing fines reaching $1.8 million against migrants who fail to leave after receiving final deportation orders.
- DHS said in July it had issued more than 103,000 fines totaling roughly $84 billion.
- Judge George O’Toole, a Bill Clinton appointee, said the administration’s process violated federal law and threatened migrants with financial ruin.
A federal judge in Boston has put the brakes on one of the Trump administration’s more aggressive immigration-enforcement tools: fines of as much as $1.8 million against migrants who remain in the United States after receiving final orders of deportation.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, granted preliminary relief in a class-action lawsuit brought by two migrants who received enormous civil penalties and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
The Trump administration revived a provision of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act allowing civil penalties against people who fail to depart after a final removal order. Under the administration’s policy, migrants could be assessed $998 for every day they remained in the country, with penalties applied retroactively for as many as five years.
That is how the tab could climb to a staggering $1.8 million.
And the administration wasn’t merely threatening to use the fines.
DHS said in July that it had issued more than 103,000 civil penalties totaling approximately $84 billion since President Trump returned to the White House.
O’Toole ruled that the administration’s process likely ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act, including because fine notices failed to contain individualized allegations explaining why a person’s conduct warranted the penalty. He also found problems with the administration’s 2025 decision to streamline the process without first allowing public notice and comment.
The judge focused heavily on what collection would do to the migrants.
“The plaintiffs live in an economically precarious position even without the imposition of the government’s exorbitant fines,” O’Toole wrote.
He said they faced “the possible garnishment of their already modest wages, loss of any vehicles and homes, federal collections lawsuits and other adverse collateral consequences.”
One plaintiff, identified as Nancy M., was assessed more than $1.8 million.
“She is a laborer working over 60 hours a week with two jobs, and she reports feeling serious anxiety affecting her ability to sleep, eat and live a normal life,” O’Toole wrote.
The administration’s position has been considerably simpler: people who receive final orders to leave the United States are supposed to leave.
The fines were part of Trump’s broader effort to increase the consequences for remaining in the country after a removal order. The administration has simultaneously encouraged voluntary departure while dramatically expanding immigration enforcement.
For now, however, the massive financial penalties are on ice while the legal fight continues.
MY QUICK TAKE:
Here we go again.
There is an almost surreal quality to the immigration debate now. A person gets a final order telling them to leave the United States. They don’t leave. The government attempts to impose a penalty for not leaving — and suddenly the discussion becomes how financially painful enforcing the penalty would be.
Of course $1.8 million is an astronomical amount of money. That is precisely why the legality and procedure behind these fines matter, and O’Toole found serious defects in how the administration implemented them.
But there is another question that deserves to survive all the legalese: What exactly is a final deportation order supposed to mean if ignoring it carries no meaningful consequence?
The courts will keep answering the legal questions. The rest of America may have a much simpler one: Were they ordered to leave or weren’t they?
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — Federal judge blocks Trump administration fines of up to $1.8M for migrants
- Reuters — U.S. judge blocks Trump policy of fining migrants up to $1.8 million
- Bloomberg Law — Judge blocks ICE rule imposing civil immigration penalties
- The Daily BS — Americans voted to deport illegal aliens
