DHS Fines Man $1.8M After He Left

A 43-year-old man who left the United States on his own says the Department of Homeland Security billed him $1,820,352 anyway — for failing to leave.

Hector "Alessandro" Negrete told CNN he moved from Los Angeles to Guadalajara, Mexico, in September 2025 after decades in the country illegally. About nine months later, a DHS notice arrived at his old Los Angeles address, where he still files US taxes, demanding a civil penalty of $1,820,352 for his failure to comply with a 2009 deportation order, according to a copy of the notice reviewed by CNN.

Negrete is one of more than 100,000 illegal immigrants fined by DHS between the start of President Trump's second term and mid-July, totaling more than $84 billion, the agency told CNN on Monday. DHS said it had collected more than $1.2 million as of July 16 — a fraction of one percent of what it has billed.

What the Notice Says, and Under What Law

The notice, per CNN's account of the document, ties the penalty to a single failure: not complying with the 2009 removal order. It does not, in the sources available, credit his 2025 departure.

DHS says on its own terms what the meter is. In a July 23 news release, the agency warned that a person with a final order of removal "will face a fine of $998 per day" for staying, and said fines can be forgiven for those who leave using the CBP Home app — who also get a free flight and an "exit bonus of $2,600."

Do the arithmetic and Negrete's bill is exactly 1,824 days at $998 — roughly five years. That is The Frank's calculation from the two figures, not a breakdown printed in the notice.

The Wire's two sources describe the legal basis only as "statutes passed by Congress nearly 30 years ago." The underlying provision is public: 8 U.S.C. 1324d, "Civil penalties for failure to depart," enacted in 1996 and codified as section 274D of the Immigration and Nationality Act, with the daily amount adjusted for inflation. A June 27, 2025 Federal Register notice from DHS states that DHS and its predecessor INS have held that authority since 1996 but issued no such penalties until after a 2017 executive order.

DHS's Side

DHS answered. In a statement to CNN, the department said: "Our message is clear: illegal aliens in the country unlawfully should leave now or face consequences—including financial penalties."

The department referred CNN to the Treasury and Justice departments when asked for additional information, and did not otherwise address Negrete's case in the sources.

In litigation, the government has argued the fine program is lawful and was authorized by Congress in the 1990s. "Whether an alien remains in country to pursue other forms of immigration relief is not a defense under the statutes," the government said in a January court filing.

His Account

The following is Negrete's own telling, as given to CNN, and is his account.

He says he was 3 months old when his parents fled violence in their Mexican hometown for California, and that he grew up in South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights without knowing his status until he applied for college scholarships and learned he had no Social Security number. He says he was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, but could not afford to attend.

He says he tried repeatedly for legal status: first through his father, a lawful permanent resident, an effort that failed because his father omitted him from a form. His attorney, Marissa Montes, told CNN a 2008 DUI conviction — later expunged — kept him from applying for DACA in 2012, and he says he had restarted the process when the Trump administration halted new applications in 2017. He never received DACA status, though he called himself a "Dreamer."

He stayed more than 15 years after the final removal order, he says, and decided to go after enforcement fears and lost nonprofit work made Los Angeles untenable. "It wasn't even fear of being deported. It was more the in-between space," he said. "I didn't want to live in a cage."

He says he and his lawyers twice sent the government evidence that he is living in Mexico, and officials demanded more documentation.