Overview
- U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. granted a stay blocking DHS’s streamlined fine process and ICE’s bulk assessments in a ruling issued Monday after finding plaintiffs likely to succeed on APA claims.
- The administration’s rule set fines at $998 per day applied retroactively for up to five years, creating individual maximums of about $1.8 million and prompting DHS to issue more than 100,000 notices by mid-2026.
- O’Toole found the agency skipped required notice-and-comment rulemaking and used boilerplate forms that failed to make individualized willfulness findings required by the 1996 statute.
- The judge said the fines could cause irreparable harm through wage garnishment, asset seizures and ruined credit that could not be undone by vacating notices later, noting examples of migrants fined while pursuing legal status.
- DHS and DOJ are reviewing the decision and may appeal, and the court allowed the government to still pursue penalties under prior procedures while the lawsuit continues, leaving final outcomes uncertain.