A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration regulation used to impose massive immigration fines, granting relief in a lawsuit brought by two women, including a South Florida resident, who were hit with a $1.82 million penalty while pursuing a path to permanent residency.

U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. in Massachusetts suspended the regulation and blocked enforcement of fines issued under it after finding that the challengers were likely to prove the government failed to consider individual circumstances before imposing the penalties. He also found they were likely to succeed on their claim that federal agencies improperly bypassed requirements to seek public input before putting the regulation into effect.

The preliminary injunction blocks the government from enforcing the regulation against the affected class of immigrants while the case proceeds. It is not a final decision permanently striking down the regulation or canceling the fines.

The Sept. 30 ruling, entered on the docket Oct. 5, offers a reprieve from penalties that can reach nearly $1.8 million per person. It also does not eliminate the government’s authority to impose immigration penalties through the procedures that preceded the challenged rule.

“The government cannot collect on those fines, cannot enforce those fines,” Charles Moore, a senior attorney at Public Justice and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. That protection will remain in place while the case is litigated.

The lawsuit, Maria L. v. Mullin, challenges an administration effort to penalize immigrants who fail to leave the United States after receiving removal or voluntary-departure orders. The plaintiffs argue that administration officials have imposed crushing debts without determining whether recipients deliberately refused to depart, including against people complying with immigration supervision requirements while seeking lawful status.

Moore said the penalties were intended to frighten immigrants into departing the U.S., including people pursuing lawful avenues to stay.

“The government is hoping that these fines will scare people into … leaving,” he said.

One plaintiff, identified in court documents as Nancy M., lives in South Florida and was under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision order when officials imposed a $1.82 million fine. She subsequently obtained an immigrant visa and was admitted as a lawful permanent resident, according to the judge’s opinion.

Her experience illustrates the central question in the case: whether remaining in the country after a removal order is enough to justify a penalty, or whether officials must first establish the circumstances required by law.

The statute governing Nancy M.’s fine penalizes a “willful” failure to depart. A separate provision authorizes penalties for people who “voluntarily” fail to comply with voluntary-departure orders.

The judge found that the challenged regulation and the resulting mass assessment of penalties appeared to disregard those distinctions.

“The statutes, therefore, effectively penalize conduct only where it is shown to be willful or voluntary,” he wrote.

Million-dollar fine

Nancy M. had remained in the country while pursuing family-based immigration relief, according to the complaint. Moore said she maintained contact with ICE, attended regular check-ins and worked two jobs, putting in as many as 60 hours a week.

Despite those circumstances, she received a penalty calculated at $998 per day over approximately five years, he said.

“It’s actually a really common … fine that we see,” Moore said.

The judge’s opinion described Nancy M.’s reported anxiety as affecting her ability to sleep, eat and live normally. Moore said she also has serious medical conditions that heightened her fear of being detained.

The other individual plaintiff, Maria L., is a Massachusetts nail technician who remained in the country to pursue humanitarian immigration relief. She received a fine in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the court documents.

Maria L. reported that the penalty worsened her health, increased her anxiety, caused depression and led her to miss a month of work. Both women are proceeding under pseudonyms.

Judge O’Toole concluded that the potential consequences extended beyond an ordinary financial dispute. The women faced debts far beyond their capacity to pay, with possible wage garnishment, loss of assets and federal collection lawsuits.

Even if they eventually won the case, the judge found, simply setting aside the penalties might not repair the damage.

“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,” he wrote.

Less time to respond

Congress established the penalty provisions in 1996, but they were largely unenforced until Trump’s first administration, according to the opinion. ICE began assessing penalties in 2018. The Biden administration later withdrew active fine notices and rescinded earlier decisions imposing penalties.

Trump revived the effort after returning to office in January 2025.

On June 27, 2025, the Departments of Homeland Security and the Justice issued an interim final rule designed to accelerate the imposition and collection of civil immigration penalties.

The agencies said the previous procedures were not designed for these offenses and that the new framework would allow officials to impose more penalties more quickly. They argued that the changes would deter unlawful entry and encourage compliance with removal and voluntary-departure orders, according to the opinion.

The regulation replaced advance notices of an “intent to fine” with direct penalty decisions, permitted delivery by ordinary mail and cut the time to challenge a penalty from 30 days to 15. It also eliminated certain opportunities for an in-person interview and administrative review.

Under the framework, officials infer a violation when someone remains in the country after an order of removal or voluntary departure, the judge wrote. The recipient then must challenge the assessment within the shortened deadline.

The government maintained that officials conducted individual assessments. But the judge found that administration officials did not supply relevant details or examples showing they had considered a person’s circumstances and concluded that a failure to depart was not willful or voluntary.

The penalty forms, he wrote, did not contain specific allegations explaining why an individual’s conduct warranted the fine.

The judge also found that the government improperly bypassed the usual process for adopting federal regulations.

Federal agencies generally must publish proposed rules, give the public an opportunity to comment and consider significant objections before putting them into effect. The government argued that it did not have to follow that process because the immigration regulation fell under exceptions for foreign-affairs matters and changes that are merely procedural.

O’Toole rejected both arguments. He found that the rule was primarily concerned with how civil penalties against people already in the United States were imposed, challenged and collected, rather than with relations with foreign governments or international agreements.

He also found that some of the changes went beyond routine administrative procedures because they affected a noncitizen’s ability to challenge potentially severe financial penalties. Under the rule, recipients had only 15 days to understand the notice, determine how to respond, gather supporting documents, prepare a defense and mail their response.

“A noncitizen’s only chance to contest ruinous civil penalties is sufficiently significant to require specific notice and comment,” O’Toole wrote.

Relief with limits

The court granted a stay suspending the June 27 regulation and all fines issued under it pending a further court order. The order contains no express limitation restricting the suspension to Nancy and Maria.

The ruling is preliminary. It does not resolve the lawsuit’s constitutional claims, which include allegations that the penalty system violates due process, the prohibition on excessive fines and the right to a civil jury trial.

It also leaves the underlying penalty statutes intact.

“Granting the stay would not prevent the defendants from imposing fines or pursuing the government’s larger immigration goals,” O’Toole wrote. Instead, officials would have to use the procedures that governed before the challenged regulation.

The judge acknowledged that the government could collect suspended fines later if the penalties ultimately were upheld.

The opinion cited more than 65,000 penalties totaling roughly $36 billion.

Moore said a DHS statement issued in July reported 103,000 penalties totaling $84 billion. Those higher figures could not be independently verified from the documents reviewed.

He could not provide a Florida-specific total but said his organization had spoken with numerous affected people in the state.

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