It usually arrives as an ordinary envelope. Inside is a government form stating that the recipient owes the United States thousands of dollars — sometimes hundreds of thousands — for not leaving the country. There was no separate hearing, interview, or advance warning before the fine was imposed. And the deadline to challenge it may have started running before the envelope was even opened.

On October 14, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice published a final rule, effective immediately, adopting the streamlined civil penalty procedures introduced on June 27, 2025. The rule governs how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) impose fines on individuals who fail to depart the United States after a removal or voluntary departure order, or who are apprehended entering the country unlawfully.

The government's own numbers show how fast this has scaled. In the three months before the interim rule, ICE issued about 12,000 of these penalties. From June 2025 through mid-September 2026, ICE issued roughly 110,000 failure-to-depart penalties, and CBP issued about 66,000 more for unlawful entry — a pace of nearly 2,800 fines per week, triple the prior rate.

Buried in the same data is the most important fact for anyone who receives a notice: only about 3 percent of people appealed — and roughly one in four decided appeals succeeded. These figures highlight the importance of evaluating potential defenses before the appeal deadline expires. Below, we explain what the rule does, who is at risk, the defenses that matter, and what to do in the first days after a notice arrives. A separate DHS notice issued October 26, 2026 also affects fines that were already imposed under the interim rule — and creates a November 16, 2026 deadline for some of those cases, which we cover below.

What the Final Rule Actually Does

Congress authorized these fines decades ago. What changed is the procedure. The old rules required a Notice of Intent to Fine by certified mail or personal service, a 30-day response period, an optional in-person interview, and an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The final rule replaces all of that with a single, compressed track:

• One document, immediately effective unless appealed. An immigration officer issues a written decision and order — typically on DHS Form 281, Notice of Violation and Order — stating the legal basis, the facts, and the amount. There is no preliminary warning notice.
• Service by regular mail. The order may be delivered in person or by ordinary first-class mail to the last address DHS has on file. Service is treated as complete on mailing, not on receipt.
• 15 business days to appeal. An appeal must be postmarked within 15 business days of service. If no timely appeal is filed, the order becomes final.
• Review stays inside DHS. A supervisory officer who did not issue the original order reviews the appeal de novo (from scratch), on the written record only. There is no interview. The officer may request more evidence, which must be provided within 15 days, and is expected to decide within 45 days.
• No immigration court review. The BIA no longer hears these appeals. The supervisor's decision is the final agency action, subject only to discretionary review by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Federal court review under the Administrative Procedure Act remains available after the DHS appeal is exhausted.
• No right to reopen or seek mitigation afterward. There is no motion to reopen or hardship-based reduction. DHS may reopen on its own initiative, but no one can demand it.

The one change in the final rule responds to complaints that mailed notices arrive late, or are dated days before they are mailed. New 8 CFR 281.1(e)(2) lets ICE accept a late appeal if the delay was caused by mail problems beyond the person's control. The appeal must include a written explanation and available evidence; ICE weighs the mailing and receipt dates, the cause and length of the delay, and the person's diligence. It is a discretionary safety valve, not a guarantee.

An October 26 Update: What Happens to Fines Already Issued

The October 14 rule settled how fines will be issued going forward. It did not, by itself, resolve the status of the tens of thousands of penalties already imposed under the interim rule — and that question was being litigated. A federal court had stayed the interim rule and the penalties issued under it, leaving people fined between June 27, 2025 and October 13, 2026 in limbo.

On October 26, 2026, DHS responded with a separate notice ratifying most of those earlier penalties — formally re-adopting them under the now-final procedures. The ratification does not reach every fine: it excludes penalties that were already reversed on appeal, are currently on appeal, or have been reopened and rescinded. Alongside it, DHS opened a narrow process for people who believe they were actually prejudiced by having their fine decided under the interim rules rather than the final ones.

Any qualifying claim under the October 26 ratification notice must be received by ICE no later than November 16, 2026. This is not a second chance to appeal the fine on the merits, and it does not reopen a case simply because someone disagrees with the amount. It is limited to claims that the use of the interim procedures caused real, legally relevant prejudice — and its ultimate effect, together with its relationship to the ongoing litigation, may still be tested in court.

If you received a penalty notice between June 27, 2025 and October 13, 2026, this is the moment to have an attorney review the notice, your appeal history, and the October 26 ratification notice together — before the November 16 window closes.

The Three Fines and What They Cost

Under the updated immigration enforcement rules, individuals may face three types of civil penalties depending on their circumstances.

1. Failure to Depart After a Removal Order (INA § 274D)‍

• Penalty: Up to $998 per day
• Who it applies to: Individuals with a final, executable removal order who willfully remain in the United States.

2. Failure to Depart Under Voluntary Departure (INA § 240B(d))‍

• Penalty: $1,992 to $9,970
• Who it applies to: Individuals granted voluntary departure who fail to leave the United States by the required deadline.
• The immigration judge or Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determines the penalty. If no amount was previously established, the default penalty is $3,000.

3. Unlawful Entry (INA § 275(b))‍

• Penalty: $100 to $500 per entry
• Who it applies to: Individuals apprehended while entering or attempting to enter the United States between designated ports of entry.

The per-day penalty produces the staggering totals. ICE assesses it only for the five years preceding the decision, but five years at $998 a day still approaches $1.8 million, and the agencies acknowledge some penalties exceed one million dollars. Ability to pay is not considered.

Missing a voluntary departure deadline also carries a separate statutory consequence: a ten-year bar to major forms of relief, including adjustment of status and cancellation of removal. A fine notice is often the first time a family learns that bar is in play.

Who Is Actually at Risk — Including People Who Assume They Are Not

The obvious group is people with an old removal order — often an in absentia order entered years ago because a hearing notice went to the wrong address or a prior representative failed them. Many have since married U.S. citizens, raised children, and become eligible for relief they never had the chance to pursue. Because DHS treats continued presence as "generally sufficient" to establish willful failure to depart, these households are now receiving notices.

Less obvious groups should also pay attention:

• People whose cases were reopened, stayed, or resolved. A reopened order, a court-ordered stay, or a grant of immigration protection or authorization that prevents execution of the removal order may provide grounds to challenge the penalty.
• People with protection or status. ICE guidance says fines should not issue to people with Temporary Protected Status, withholding or Convention Against Torture protection (where no alternative removal country exists), approved deferred action, or certain VAWA-based stays. If a notice arrives anyway, that is a defense — if raised on time.
• Lawful permanent residents. The rule acknowledges reports that some green card holders received penalty notices in error. A Form 281 is not junk mail, and an erroneous order is far harder to undo once final.
• Mixed-status families. A fine against one spouse or parent is a household financial event and a signal of enforcement attention that changes the urgency of the family's broader immigration strategy.

The Defenses That Matter

DHS describes these penalties as "straightforward." In practice, the facts behind them often are not. The government's own data — a 25 percent success rate on appeal — confirms that errors are real. The most important lines of defense include:

No final, executable order. The fine requires a final removal order with no legal impediment to removal. A pending motion to reopen that carries an automatic stay, a court-ordered stay, or a later grant of protection can each defeat this element. So can the simple fact that the order was vacated and DHS's records never caught up.

Lawful permission to remain. Periods when a person was authorized to stay should be excluded. ICE guidance says so, but the notice does not itemize the days charged, so the person contesting the fine must reconstruct the timeline.

Not willful or voluntary. The statutes require willful (removal orders) or voluntary (voluntary departure) failure to depart. Detention, serious hospitalization, or documented efforts to obtain travel documents at ICE's request can undercut that element — and DHS has said it will not know about these circumstances unless they are raised on appeal.

Wrong person, wrong amount, wrong period. Identity errors happen at this volume. Voluntary departure fines should match the amount the immigration judge set, or $3,000 if none was set. DHS interprets continued willful failure to depart as a continuing or repeated violation and currently limits its assessment of daily penalties to the five years preceding the penalty decision. Whether that interpretation is legally sustainable may remain subject to judicial review.

The person already left. A documented departure, even one DHS never recorded, defeats liability for the period afterward.

A notice of appeal can be as simple as checking the appeal field on Form 281. But because the appeal is decided on paper, with no interview and no BIA review, the written record submitted with the appeal is effectively the whole case. A bare notice preserves the right to be heard; a documented appeal is what wins.

The Decision Behind the Fine: CBP Home, Departure, and Re-Entry Bars

DHS pairs these fines with an offer. Under its CBP Home policy, DHS states it will forgive failure-to-depart penalties for non-criminal individuals who schedule their departure through the CBP Home app and actually leave, and it may provide travel assistance.

For some people, that is a reasonable path. For many others, it is the most consequential and least reversible decision they will make, and it should never be made because of a fine alone. Departure may trigger inadmissibility under INA §212(a)(9)(A) based on a prior removal order, as well as the three- or ten-year unlawful-presence bars under INA §212(a)(9)(B), depending on the individual's immigration history. It can also abandon relief that was genuinely available, such as a motion to reopen an old in absentia order, adjustment through a U.S. citizen spouse, or a protection claim.

Before deciding how to handle the fine, you should first find out whether you have any options to remain legally in the United States. Your immigration options should guide your decision about the fine, not the other way around.

What the Rule Does Not Do

Because frightening numbers spread quickly, precision matters:

• It does not create new fines. The penalties come from statutes enacted in the 1990s. The rule changes procedure, not liability.
• It does not, by itself, authorize seizure of bank accounts, wage garnishment, or liens. Collection is governed by separate debt-collection laws, and a court judgment requires the Department of Justice to sue in federal court, where the debt can be contested.
• It does not eliminate federal court review — but skipping the DHS appeal can forfeit that path.
• It does not change the underlying obligation. The fine is a symptom of an unresolved immigration problem, which is usually where the real solution lies.

What to Do If You — or Someone in Your Family — Receives a Penalty Notice

Keep the envelope and record the arrival date. Photograph the postmark and the date on the form. If the notice arrived late or was mailed after its printed date, that is the foundation of any mail-delay argument.

Calendar the deadline from the mailing date. The clock starts when DHS mails the order, not when it arrives, so treat the first few days as already gone.

Do not ignore it, and do not pay it reflexively. An unappealed order becomes final. Paying may be right in some cases, but only after assessing whether the fine is valid.

Mail the appeal with proof of deposit. Timeliness is measured by postmark, and DHS encourages time-stamped proof of mailing from USPS or a commercial carrier. Keep the receipt.

Request the government's records. You have the right, on request, to copies of the pertinent documents DHS relied on. Those records often reveal the database error, missed stay, or miscounted period that wins the appeal.

Look past the fine to the underlying case. A notice means an old removal order or missed departure date is now active in DHS's enforcement systems. That is the moment to ask whether the order can be reopened, whether relief is available, and whether departure would cause irreversible harm.

Keep your address current with immigration authorities. Mail to your last known address is legally sufficient service, so an outdated address can cost you the entire appeal window.

A Penalty Notice Is a Deadline — Don't Let It Pass Unanswered

This process is built for speed and scale. The remaining safeguards are real, but narrow, written-only, and unforgiving of delay. If you or a family member receives a penalty notice, the most important step is to speak with a qualified immigration attorney promptly — before the appeal window closes and before making any decision about leaving the United States.

At the Law Offices of Sabrina Li, immigration law is our sole focus, and Sabrina Li is a State Bar of California Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law. If you have questions about your immigration situation or how developments like this rule may affect you and your family, we welcome you to reach out.

You can contact the Law Offices of Sabrina Li by phone on our general line at (213) 375-8096 or on our Chinese-language hotline at (626) 800-4820, by email at csteam@sabrinali.law, and you can learn more about our immigration practice at sabrinali.law.