Imposition and Collection of Civil Penalties for Certain Immigration-Related Violations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>8 CFR Part 281</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No: ICEB-2025-0034]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1653-AA96</RIN> DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE <SUBAGY>Executive Office for Immigration Review</SUBAGY> <CFR>8 CFR Parts 1003 and 1280</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Dir. Order No. 01-2025]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1125-AB36</RIN> <SUBJECT>Imposition and Collection of Civil Penalties for Certain Immigration-Related Violations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”); Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”), Department of Justice (“DOJ”). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule; request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This interim final rule (“IFR”) amends existing DHS and DOJ regulations. It provides exclusive DHS procedures for the issuance of civil monetary penalties under the Immigration and Nationality Act for aliens who fail to depart voluntarily during the voluntary departure period, willfully fail or refuse to depart after a final removal order and certain other proscribed activities, or are apprehended while improperly entering or attempting to enter the United States. The IFR also transfers the appeals process for these penalties from DOJ's Board of Immigration Appeals to DHS. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> This final rule is effective on June 27, 2025. <E T="03">Comment date:</E> Comments must be received on or before July 28, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this IFR, identified by DHS Docket Number ICEB-2025-0034, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> All comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. Follow the website instructions for submitting comments. Comments submitted in a manner other than the one listed above, including emails or letters sent to the Departments' officials, will not be considered comments on the rule and may not receive a response from the Departments. The Departments cannot accept any comments that are hand-delivered or couriered. In addition, the Departments cannot accept comments contained on any form of digital media storage devices, such as CDs, DVDs, or USB drives. The Departments are not accepting mailed comments at this time. If you cannot submit your comment using <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> please see the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For DHS:</E> Office of Regulatory Affairs and Policy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, 500 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20536; telephone (202) 732-6960 (not a toll-free call) (for questions only—no comments will be accepted at this phone number). <E T="03">For DOJ:</E> Stephanie Gorman, Acting Assistant Director, Office of Policy, Executive Office for Immigration Review, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2500, Falls Church, VA 22041; telephone (703) 305-0289 (not a toll-free call). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> Instructions for providing comments are in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> caption above. <E T="03">Privacy:</E> You may wish to consider limiting the amount of personal information that you provide in any comment submission you make to the Department, because anyone can electronically search comments in any of DHS's dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). The Departments may withhold information provided in comments from public viewing that the Departments determine may impact the privacy of an individual or is offensive. For additional information, please read the Privacy and Security Notice posted on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket and to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> referencing DHS Docket No. ICEB-2025-0034. You may also sign up for email alerts on the online docket to be notified when comments are posted or when the final rule is published. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background and Purpose</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Civil Monetary Penalty Provisions of the INA</HD> The Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA” or the “Act”) authorizes the imposition of numerous civil monetary penalties for various immigration-related violations. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Since its enactment, the INA has included several civil monetary penalties against entities that, and persons who, fail to comply with statutory and regulatory requirements designed to prevent aliens' unlawful entry and presence in the United States. For example, the INA has long required carriers, including vessels and airlines, to ensure under pain of civil monetary penalties that aliens being transported to the United States have valid documents for admission. <E T="03">See, e.g., Screening Requirements of Carriers,</E> 61 FR 29323 (June 10, 1996) (discussing the history of section 273 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1323). The INA has also long imposed civil monetary penalties on employers who knowingly hire, recruit, or refer for a fee aliens without proper work authorization, and on employers who fail to comply with employment verification requirements. <E T="03">See</E> INA 274A, 8 U.S.C. 1324a. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  This rule variously refers to “fines,” “civil penalties,” and “civil monetary penalties.” Those terms are meant to have identical meaning for purposes of this rule. </FTNT> Prior to 1996, however, the INA generally did not authorize civil monetary penalties against aliens who violated the immigration laws. In 1996, Congress substantially amended the INA through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”). Public Law 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546. The purpose of IIRIRA was to enhance immigration enforcement and the consequences of violating the nation's immigration laws. H.R. Rep. No. 104-469, pt. 1, at 1, 107 (1996). In furtherance of that purpose, Congress added three new provisions to the INA that authorize the Attorney General to impose civil monetary penalties against aliens who fail to voluntarily depart the United States during the specified period designated in an order granting voluntary departure, who are subject to a final order of removal and willfully fail or refuse to depart the United States or take certain other actions to thwart their departure or removal, or who are apprehended while illegally entering or attempting to enter the United States. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  This authority was transferred to the Secretary of Homeland Security as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. For a discussion of the Departments' authority to issue this rule and the transfer of immigration enforcement functions to DHS after the Homeland Security Act of 2002, <E T="03">see</E> Section III of this preamble. </FTNT> First, under section 240B(d)(1)(A) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1229c(d)(1)(A), Congress authorized the imposition of civil monetary penalties against aliens granted voluntary departure who fail to depart the United States within an allotted period. Public Law 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, 3009-597. Voluntary departure is a discretionary form of relief that allows certain aliens—either before the conclusion of removal proceedings under section 240 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1229a (“section 240 removal proceedings”), or after being found removable—to request and be granted permission by an Immigration Judge to depart the United States at their own expense as an alternative to formal removal proceedings and the entry of a formal removal order. <E T="03">See</E> INA 240B(a)(1), (b)(1), 8 U.S.C. 1229c(a)(1), (b)(1). Voluntary departure under section 240B of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1229c, “allows the Government and the alien to agree upon a <E T="03">quid pro quo.” Dada</E> v. <E T="03">Mukasey,</E> 554 U.S. 1, 11 (2008). An alien granted this relief avoids a removal order and its attendant consequences and is allowed to depart the United States voluntarily; the Departments avoid the costs of immigration proceedings and the burden of removing an alien. <E T="03">See id.</E> To promote compliance with voluntary-departure orders, Congress imposed a civil penalty of between $1,992 and $9,970, as adjusted for inflation, for failing to depart voluntarily during the period specified. <E T="03">See</E> INA 240B(d)(1)(A), 8 U.S.C. 1229c(d)(1)(A); <E T="03">see also</E> 8 CFR 280.53(b)(3); <E T="03">Civil Monetary Penalty Adjustments for Inflation,</E> 90 FR 1, 2 (Jan. 2, 2025). Additionally, when entering an order granting voluntary departure, the Immigration Judge is required to warn the alien of the consequences of failing to depart during the period specified, including that civil monetary penalties can be assessed. <E T="03">See</E> INA 240B(d)(3), 8 U.S.C. 1229c(d)(3). Second, under section 274D(a)(1) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1324d(a)(1), DHS has the authority to impose civil monetary penalties on an alien who is subject to a final order of removal and who willfully fails or refuses to (A) depart the United States pursuant to that order, (B) make a timely application in good faith for travel or other documents necessary for departure, or (C) present for removal at the time and place required by DHS. Most aliens subject to these penalties have been ordered removed at the conclusion of section 240 removal proceedings. <SU>3</SU> <FTRE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 171k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━