The Trump administration is aggressively deploying a potent tool to pressure immigrants in the country illegally into self-deporting — civil fines that can total as much as $1.8 million.

More than 100,000 people have received letters from the Homeland Security Department informing them that they owe $998 for each day that they have stayed in the United States after an immigration judge has ruled they have no legal right to remain in the country.

Fines for failing to heed a “removal” order have been permitted since the passage of immigration legislation in 1996. Until President Donald Trump, however, no commander in chief had imposed such penalties. The effort to do so in his first term ran into logistical obstacles and never gained traction.

But after returning to the White House last year and starting his mass deportation campaign, Trump ordered “all appropriate action to ensure the assessment and collection of all fines and penalties” from people unlawfully in the country.

Now, with the administration seeking to increase financial pressure on those immigrants, the pace of fines has been accelerating, according to immigration lawyers.

For immigrants who receive one, the notices amount to an agonizing ultimatum: abandon the lives they have built or face the threat of financial ruin if the government moves to collect on the debt. Even under a five-year statutory limit, the accumulated penalties can reach $1.8 million per person.

Vivi Vasquez, a Mexican immigrant, has lived in the United States for 17 years and has an active humanitarian visa application. With a work permit, she has legally worked at a convenience store and cared for seniors.

Expecting an update on her visa application, Vasquez opened an envelope that arrived in April bearing a DHS logo. Instead of news about her visa, she found a form letter in which the government had checked a box next to a statement that she had “willfully” failed to depart the United States.

She owed the government $1,820,352, according to the document, which was reviewed by The New York Times. Tucked in the same envelope was a flyer titled, “Self-Deport with CBP Home and Leave on Your Own Terms,” referring to an app run by Customs and Border Protection. It offered “forgiveness” for all fines to those who used the app to self-deport.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I was nervous every morning I left home for work,” said Vasquez, who has three U.S.-born children, ages 10, 12 and 14.

Legal aid organizations and lawyers representing individual clients have filed several federal lawsuits seeking to block the policy, contending that the financial penalties violate due process and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines.

In court filings opposing the motion to pause the policy, the government has argued that the fact that a person remained in the country to pursue other forms of immigration relief “is not a defense under the statutes and does not change the underlying determination that one willfully or voluntarily violated” the removal order.

Vast sweeps by federal agents in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis have been the most visible and volatile fronts in Trump’s crackdown. But the fines are part of a parallel effort by the administration to squeeze immigrants in the country illegally and make it harder for them to live in the United States.

“We started seeing this a couple months ago, and it’s become a big trend,“ said John Leschak, an immigration lawyer in New Jersey who represented Vasquez and was able to have the fines canceled.

“These are people who have homes, cars, businesses in their names,” he said. “The government says they stand to have all that confiscated.”

Prevailing, as Vasquez did, is not typical, according to a dozen lawyers interviewed by the Times. In case after case, they say, appeals have been denied, including for a 68-year-old man who is the primary caregiver for his wife, a U.S. citizen who has cancer.

The man was ordered removed in 2012 but allowed to remain in the United States after Homeland Security paused his removal. A few months ago, he received the form letter, saying that he had willfully failed to depart and owed the government $579,838.

“You can’t allow people to stay here and then turn around and just fine them for it,” said the man’s lawyer, Reem Khraizat, who practices in Detroit.

Khraizat filed an appeal that included letters of support from health providers attesting to his wife’s condition and her reliance on him.

“ICE reaffirmed the decision without even addressing the facts presented on appeal,” Khraizat said.

The Homeland Security Department said that between Jan. 20, 2025, and mid-July of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued more than 103,000 fines to noncitizens who remained in the United States past a deportation order, seeking a combined total of more than $84 billion.

As of July 16, it had collected more than $1.2 million, according to the agency.

Desperate to protect their life savings, some immigrants have removed their names from property deeds or transferred their modest assets into trusts, according to two lawyers who assist immigrants with estate planning.

“This administration is just churning out as many fines as it can to intimidate and harass people into leaving the country,” said Charles Moore, a senior attorney with Public Justice, a nonprofit legal organization, who is representing immigrants in a Massachusetts lawsuit to block the practice.

The Homeland Security Department did not respond to questions about how many immigrants had chosen to self-deport to avoid the penalties and how many cases had been referred to debt collection agencies.

Even as the policy faces legal challenges, government enforcement continues to move forcefully. Moore, who is seeking class-action certification for the Massachusetts lawsuit, said DHS has referred some debts to private collection agencies, seized tax refunds and garnished wages, and that the Justice Department has taken dozens of immigrants to court to compel them to pay.

During the first Trump administration, the notices were sent by certified mail, which obligates the recipient to sign for delivery — a requirement that led to many of the notices being returned to DHS as undeliverable.

President Joe Biden rescinded the policy upon taking office, but Trump resurrected it on the first day of his second term through an executive order and a swiftly enacted policy that carried steeper fines.

And this time, the letters were sent by ordinary mail.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Miriam Jordan / Salwan Georges

c. 2026 The New York Times Company