Washington: The Trump administration has started charging a $5,000 fee to people who entered the US illegally.
The “apprehension fee” applies to anyone 14 or older who is arrested and determined to have crossed the border without authorization and is deemed inadmissible, US Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks said in a statement on X on Thursday. The fee was approved by Congress under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included billions of dollars for immigration enforcement.
“This message applies to all illegal aliens — regardless of where they entered, how long they’ve been in the US, their current location, or any ongoing immigration proceedings,” Banks said in his tweet.
Arrests at the southwest border have plummeted in the past year, reaching monthly lows not seen since the 1960s. In November, the Border Patrol reported making about 7,300 arrests along the Mexican border, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That’s a slight decline from October.
At the same time, Border Patrol agents have been deployed to interior cities far from the border where they have routinely made arrests at Home Depot parking lots, car washes and other locations unauthorized migrants are believed to gather. Those agents, often masked, heavily armed and helmeted, have routinely clashed with protesters in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. Multiple lawsuits have challenged the agency’s use of force against protesters and arrests without warrants.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late on Friday that the fee was implemented in September. For anyone who doesn’t pay it, the fine becomes “a debt owed to the US government” that could bar them from coming back to the US legally, the agency said.
The arrest fee is the latest penalty announced for immigrants targeted under Trump’s mass-deportation policy. Earlier this year the administration said it would being charging penalties of nearly $1,000 a day for migrants facing deportation orders who have not left.
Separately, the administration has launched an aggressive self-deportation campaign, offering to pay migrants $1,000 to leave the US on their own if they check out using the Customs and Border Protection Home app. This week DHS said about 1.9 million foreigners had self-deported since Trump took office, though it is unclear how many of those people used the CBP Home app.
David Leopold, a Cleveland-based immigration attorney, said the apprehension fee is likely to be challenged in court.
“It’s one more coercive tactic,” Leopold said.
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
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