Donald Trump’s administration has filed a nearly $1 million lawsuit against an immigrant who stayed in the United States despite a court order to leave.
The lawsuit reflects the administration’s broader strategy to pressure undocumented immigrants to leave the country by slapping them with substantial financial penalties — constituting just one part of the president’s government-wide anti-immigration campaign.
The federal lawsuit requests a $941,114 civil penalty — plus accrued interest — from Marta Alicia Ramirez Veliz, who is allegedly living in Chesterfield County, Virginia without legal permission.
It’s not clear when or how Ramirez Veliz first entered the country. But she was handed an order of removal by an immigration judge in 2019, which became final after the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal in 2022, according to the Department of Justice.
In April, Ramirez Veliz was served a notice stating she would be fined, and she failed to file an appeal within the necessary 30-day window, according to government lawyers.
Officials arrived at the nearly $1 million figure by assessing a $998 penalty for each day between the Board of Immigration Appeals’ dismissal and her notification in April.
“Defendant has not paid any of the penalty and remains liable to the United States for the full penalty amount plus statutory additions,” officials said.
Some legal experts have condemned the nearly seven-figure fine, calling it one of the largest of its kind on record.
“That does sound like the largest number we have heard when we were tracking this,” Charles Moore, an attorney with Public Justice, a public interest law group, told Politico. “We know that the amounts were as low as $3,000 and as high as several hundred thousand but, no, we hadn’t heard of anything close to $1 million.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. An attorney for Ramirez Veliz could not be reached.
As of this summer, the Trump administration had handed out about 21,500 fines, totaling more than $6 billion, to immigrants who allegedly disregard orders to leave the country, The Independent previously reported.
Immigrants who don’t pay the levies have been threatened with lawsuits, debt collectors and huge tax bills.
The Republican administration implemented the new system in June under a process authorized by a 1996 immigration law. Yet for much of the past three decades, such fees have rarely been enforced, as officials have generally prioritized removal over severe financial penalties.
A senior DHS official previously told The Independent that the message from Secretary Kristi Noem “is clear: if you’re in the country illegally, leave now or face the consequences.”
