A sweeping immigration penalty campaign has helped drive thousands of self-deportations, the Trump administration said Tuesday, as officials finalize rules making it easier and faster to issue fines against immigrants who ignore deportation orders or enter the United States illegally. According to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Register filing, more than 175,000 immigration penalties have been issued since the administration revamped its enforcement approach in 2025, marking a significant increase over the 12,000 issued in the months before the rule change. DHS has been urging immigrants without legal status to self-deport, with a stipend that has risen to $3,000 and a government-funded flight to their home country, as well as forgiveness of immigration-related fines.
The administration has framed it as safer and easier than facing potential U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. Newsweek reached out to DHS for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
The DHS filing Tuesday finalizes a 2025 interim rule that applies to immigrants who fail to leave the U.S. after deportation orders, as well as those caught entering the country illegally. The policy introduced last year streamlined how DHS imposes fines that Congress authorized years ago, with the Trump administration having argued that the old process was cumbersome and made large-scale enforcement impractical. Previously, DHS issued a notice of how it intended to fine a person, there was a longer review process and then the penalty could be imposed.
Under the 2025 change, DHS can start with a penalty decision, the appeals stay within the department rather than going to the Department of Justice, and the appeals must be filed within 15 days. For illegal entry, the fine can be between $100 and $500, while voluntary departure violations can reach nearly $10,000, and failure-to-depart penalties can be around $998 per day. The department said in its filing that the 2025 policy was "working as intended," with a greater number of penalty notices able to be issued.
From March 26, 2025, through June 26, 2025, DHS said it issued 12,135 penalties. After June 27, 2025, when the new rule was implemented, through September 10, 2026, approximately 110,000 failure-to-depart fines were sent, while U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued 66,000 unlawful entry fines.
Before the rule change, DHS said it was issuing around 930 penalties per week, while afterward, the number rose to around 2,800 a week. DHS said that its "robust use of civil penalties" was pushing more immigrants without legal status to self-deport. "DHS data indicates that over 82,000 aliens with removal orders and voluntary departures orders have self-departed from the United States since DHS began issuing civil penalties in March 2025 through September 14, 2026," the department wrote.
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