A federal judge has put the brakes on the Trump administration's revived program of massive civil fines against immigrants, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security likely broke the law by slapping people with enormous penalties without checking whether they actually did anything to deserve them.
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr., an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, granted a stay Wednesday against a June 2025 rule that let DHS rush out fines for failing to leave the country, along with ICE's practice of issuing them in bulk.
The agency has reportedly handed out more than 65,000 penalties worth roughly $36 billion.
The two statutes behind the fines apply only when someone willfully ignores a removal order or voluntarily skips a departure deadline. O'Toole found the administration effectively erased those words.
Under the rule, simply staying in the country after an order triggers an assumed violation, and the burden shifts to the recipient to fight back. The newer ICE forms are boilerplate checkboxes with no explanation of why anyone's conduct was deemed willful, and the government offered no example of an officer ever deciding a person's failure to leave wasn't willful. The judge also noted that issuing nearly 10,000 notices in just three months undercuts any claim that each case got individual review.
The two plaintiffs show how that plays out. Nancy M. was hit with a fine of about $1.82 million for supposedly "willful" noncompliance while living in the U.S. under an order of supervision, and has since been approved for an immigrant visa and become a green card holder. Maria L., a nail technician, was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars while pursuing legal status.
O'Toole also found the administration likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act by skipping public comment. He rejected the government's claims that the rule fell under the foreign affairs and procedural exceptions, since it governs people already inside the country, not relations with other nations.
The rule scrapped advance warning of a fine and cut the appeal window from 30 days to 15, a change the judge called "essentially punitive" given the need to read technical English, gather evidence, and mail a response in that time.
On harm, the judge said wage garnishment, seized homes and cars, and ruined credit couldn't be undone by simply vacating fines later, since the plaintiffs would be pushed into insolvency. Because the government can still pursue fines under the old procedures, he said, a stay costs it little.