Trump Administration Reportedly Imposes Massive Civil Penalties on People with Final Removal Orders: DHS is reported to be sending notices for $998 per day of continued presence, referring debts to collectors, garnishing wages, intercepting tax refunds, and filing lawsuits — affecting over 100,000 people.

Policy Risks Backfiring: The strategy may discourage compliance rather than encourage self-deportation by pushing people into underground economies, reducing tax filing, and increasing distrust, making individuals harder to locate and supervise.

Critique of Enforcement Approach: The article argues the program conflates willful defiance with practical barriers to departure, risks turning into an expensive political spectacle, and expands immigration enforcement into financial exclusion without sufficient due process or realistic collection prospects.

The Trump administration says it wants immigrants with final removal orders to leave the United States. Its latest enforcement strategy may make that objective harder to achieve.

The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly sent notices to more than 100,000 people asserting that they owe $998 for every day they remained in the country after an immigration judge ordered their removal. Some claimed debts have reached approximately $1.8 million.

The government is also moving beyond warning letters. According to The New York Times, federal authorities have referred some debts to private collection agencies, intercepted tax refunds, garnished wages and filed lawsuits seeking payment.

The policy is being presented as a tool to encourage “self-deportation.” In practice, however, imposing unpayable debts on people who are already difficult to remove may produce a different result: more underground employment, less tax compliance, greater distrust of government and fewer incentives to maintain a traceable economic life.

The United States has the authority to enforce legally valid removal orders. But there is an important difference between enforcing an order and imposing a financial sentence that the government knows most recipients could never pay.

A Dormant Power Becomes a Mass-Enforcement Program

The statutory authority is not new.

Under 8 U.S.C. § 1324d, a person subject to a final removal order may face a daily civil penalty for willfully refusing to depart, failing to seek necessary travel documents in good faith, failing to appear for removal or taking action........

© Eurasia Review