A federal judge in Boston has blocked one of the Trump administration’s toughest tools for getting migrants with final deportation orders to actually leave the country: daily civil fines that can add up to $1.8 million per person.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr., who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, issued the ruling this week, according to Reuters and JURIST. The case was brought as a class action by two migrants who were hit with the fines, along with an advocacy group called the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
What the fines are
The penalties are not new law. Congress authorized civil fines for people who refuse to depart after a removal order in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, according to Reuters. But no administration actually used that power until President Trump’s first term.
In his second term, the fines came back in a big way. They trace to Trump’s January 2025 executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” and a DHS rule put in place in June 2025, JURIST reported.
Here is how the math works, according to the reports:
- $998 for every day a person stays after being ordered out
- Assessed retroactively for up to five years
- A maximum of about $1.8 million per person
By July 2026, DHS had issued more than 103,000 of these fines, totaling roughly $84 billion, according to JURIST and Reuters.
Why the judge stopped them
Judge O’Toole did not rule that the fines themselves are unconstitutional. Instead, he found the challengers were likely to win on a procedural claim under the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that governs how federal agencies write rules.
According to the reports, the judge faulted the government on two points. First, he said the streamlined fine process skipped the public notice-and-comment period that major rule changes normally require. Second, he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued the penalties on boilerplate forms that did not lay out specific allegations about each person’s case.
The judge also stressed the size of the fines compared with the migrants’ finances. “The plaintiffs live in an economically precarious position even without the imposition of the government’s exorbitant fines,” he wrote, as quoted by Reuters. JURIST noted his concern about how the money could be collected, including wage garnishment, asset seizure and federal lawsuits.
DHS did not immediately comment on the ruling, according to Reuters.
The administration’s case
DHS has been clear about the purpose of the fines: to make staying illegally more costly than leaving. In May, a DHS spokesperson told Breitbart News that the department was encouraging people to use the CBP Home app, which lets them fly home for free and collect a $2,600 stipend.
“Illegal aliens who do not depart will face fines of $1,000 per day, as well as arrest and deportation without return,” the department said at the time. Responding to cases involving pending green card applications, the spokesperson added, “The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”
Breitbart also reported that DHS hired private debt collection agencies to help collect the penalties.
What critics say
Immigrant advocates argue the fines are crushing for low-income families and were rolled out too quickly, with too little explanation in each case. The Boston ruling gives them a temporary win while the lawsuit continues.
The bottom line
Notice what this ruling does not say. It does not say Congress was wrong to authorize these fines in 1996, and it does not say the government is barred from using them. It says the paperwork and the rulemaking process were not good enough. That is a fixable problem, and the administration should fix it quickly by running a proper rulemaking and issuing case-specific notices that will hold up in court.
It is also worth remembering who these fines apply to. They are not aimed at people waiting in line or fighting their cases. They apply to people who have already received a final order to leave and have not left. The government offers a free flight home and cash to go. The judge worried that the fines are more than these migrants can pay. That is the point: the cheapest option is to obey the order.
For nearly 30 years, Washington ignored a tool Congress gave it. Now that an administration is finally using it, a single district judge has put it on hold. If the law on the books means anything, the appeals courts, or Congress, should make sure this one gets enforced.
Sources
- JURIST: US judge blocks Trump administration’s attempt to fine migrants who fail to willingly deport
- Reuters via SRN News: US judge blocks Trump policy of fining migrants up to $1.8 million
- Breitbart News: DHS hires debt agencies to collect federal fines on illegal migrants