Daijiworld Media Network - Washington
Washington, Oct 6: A US federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from imposing civil fines of up to $1.8 million on migrants who fail to leave the country after receiving final deportation orders.
US District Judge George O'Toole in Boston issued the ruling in a class-action lawsuit filed by two migrants who had been assessed civil penalties by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
O'Toole ruled that the administration had imposed the fines unlawfully and said halting the penalty-related policies was necessary because collecting the fines could push the plaintiffs into insolvency.
The judge said the plaintiffs were already living in economically precarious circumstances even without the government's fines. DHS did not immediately comment on the ruling.
According to DHS figures cited in the case, more than 103,000 fines had been issued to migrants by July, amounting to approximately $84 billion in total since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.
Federal law has authorised civil penalties for certain immigration violations since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. However, administrations did not begin seeking such penalties until Trump's first term.
During Trump's second administration, the government began imposing fines of $998 a day on migrants who failed to leave the US after receiving deportation orders. The penalties could be applied retroactively for up to five years, resulting in a maximum fine of about $1.8 million.
In July 2025, DHS and the US Department of Justice introduced a streamlined process for assessing the fines. The process eliminated a 30-day notice period and shortened the procedure for challenging penalties.
The plaintiffs challenged that policy as well as what they described as a practice by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of issuing fines through standardised forms without independently determining whether an individual's failure to leave the country was "willful" or "voluntary."
O'Toole, who was appointed to the federal bench by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, sided with the plaintiffs. He held that the fines violated the Administrative Procedure Act because the forms did not contain specific allegations explaining why an individual's conduct warranted a penalty.
The judge also found that the administration had failed to follow required rulemaking procedures when adopting the streamlined process because it did not provide the public an opportunity to comment on the policy beforehand.
The ruling represents another legal setback for the Trump administration's immigration enforcement measures, which have faced multiple challenges in federal courts.