A Boston federal judge blocked the Trump administration from fining illegal immigrants up to $1.8 million for staying after final deportation orders, undercutting a core enforcement tool.
The Hill reported Monday that U.S. District Judge George O’Toole stopped the Department of Homeland Security from imposing those civil penalties on people who already received final orders to leave the country and refused.
O’Toole ruled the fines were unlawfully imposed. He found they violated the Administrative Procedure Act because the government did not supply specific allegations explaining why any migrant’s conduct warranted a penalty.
The decision lands squarely on a revived Immigration and Nationality Act provision the administration has used to press compliance. Deporting people who ignore removal orders has been a central priority in President Trump’s second term.
The judge focused on the economic pressure the fines would create. Plaintiffs included migrant women who sued DHS and Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
O’Toole wrote that the migrants sit in an “economically precarious position” and that answering the fines could push them into insolvency.
He described the practical risks this way:
"They face the possible garnishment of their already modest wages, loss of any vehicles and homes, federal collections lawsuits and other adverse collateral consequences,"
He added that even a later win in court might not undo the damage:
"If they were ultimately successful in this suit, there is no indication that simply requiring the government to vacate their fine notices would, or even could, at that point, make the plaintiffs whole or return the circumstances to the status quo."
One plaintiff, identified as Nancy M., drew particular attention in the opinion. O’Toole noted the size of her penalty and her work schedule.
"Nancy M. was fined over $1.8 million,"
He continued:
"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."
Those details describe real strain. They do not erase the underlying fact: the fines targeted people who had already been ordered to leave and stayed anyway.
As recently as July 23, DHS stated it had issued more than $84 billion in civil fines to illegal immigrants who chose not to leave the United States since the start of Trump’s second term.
O’Toole called the statutory authority “a long-ignored provision... revived by the present executive administration.” The same monetary-penalty approach was first pursued in Trump’s first term under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The administration’s second-term deportation push has already drawn street protests in several American cities. Fines were one lever meant to raise the cost of simply ignoring a final removal order.
In July, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called on DHS and the Department of Justice to pause what they labeled the “improper application of certain civil penalties” in the law to “law-abiding immigrants.”
The senators framed the targets as law-abiding. The fines at issue applied after final deportation orders, orders that already established the recipients had no legal right to remain.
The Hill reached out to DHS for comment on the ruling. No response appears in the available account.
O’Toole is a Clinton appointee. He previously presided over the 2015 trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The fine case now puts a procedural APA holding between the executive branch and people who have already exhausted removal proceedings.
The opinion blocks the fine effort as described. It does not claim the underlying removal orders were invalid. It turns on notice and allegation requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Taxpayers and lawful residents are left watching a familiar pattern: final orders issued, compliance refused, and a federal court narrowing the tools meant to make refusal costly.
When courts treat post-order penalties as the main injury, the incentive to ignore removal orders only grows stronger.
