Trump team sues immigrant for $1M after she failed to leave US despite court order

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.

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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.

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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.”

Immigrants who choose to “self-deport” will not be required to pay the levies imposed on them, according to DHS. The administration advertises “cost-free travel, forgiveness of any failure to depart fines, and a $2,600 exit bonus to facilitate travel back to their home country or another country where they have lawful status” if immigrants choose to “self-deport” through CBP Home app.

The app was formerly the CBP One app, a Joe Biden-era product that allowed more than 1 million immigrants to begin their immigration process before reaching the country. The Trump administration revoked legal status for all immigrants who entered the country with that app.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has criticized Homeland Security’s claim that people who “self-deport” will be allowed to return “legally,” calling it a “a deeply misleading and unethical trick.”

Immigrants with a record of deportation are more likely to face lengthy waiting periods, or outright denials, when applying for future visas.

Some hit with the fines say they deepen the stress and uncertainty undocumented immigrants already live with.

Early last year, a Honduran woman who has resided in the U.S. for 20 years was slapped with nearly $2 million in fines for failing to leave the country despite being handed a removal order in 2005.

“I live with anxiety… I can’t sleep… I don’t feel,” the 41-year-old mother-of-three American citizens told CBS News.

Polls show the public is largely divided over the mass deportation effort under President Trump, who has vowed to carry out what he called the “largest deportation operation” in American history.

About half of voters support Trump’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, but 61 percent believe Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics have gone too far, according to a results of a recent survey from The New York Times. Reuters polling also found a record-low 39 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of immigration.