Trump’s Private Repo Men Are Hunting Immigrants With Multimillion-Dollar Fines

The Trump administration is escalating its immigration crackdown by hiring private debt collectors with a history of abuse to chase down immigrants slapped with staggering civil penalties. Documents reviewed by The Lever reveal that these companies—previously implicated in widespread misconduct on a federal student loan debt program—are now enforcing multimillion-dollar fines against immigrants who fail to leave the country.

One private collection notice obtained by The Lever imposed a $1.8 million fine—the maximum allowed under immigration law—on a single individual, plus an additional $500,000 in fees and interest. This $2.3 million demand is not an isolated case. Immigration lawyers report a growing flood of such collection letters since the Department of Homeland Security began imposing these penalties last year.

This aggressive financial squeeze is a direct result of a January White House executive order aiming to pressure immigrants into self-deportation through punitive economic means. By outsourcing enforcement to private contractors with questionable records, the administration is doubling down on a strategy that prioritizes profit and punishment over fairness and due process.

“This is part and parcel with the administration’s desire to partner with the private sector to make immigration enforcement as punitive and painful as possible,” said Charles Moore, attorney at Public Justice. The move echoes the administration’s reliance on for-profit prison companies like GeoGroup and CoreCivic to run detention centers, underscoring a disturbing trend of privatizing and monetizing immigration enforcement.

The use of these private “repo men” to hunt down immigrants signals a new chapter in the Trump administration’s authoritarian overreach—weaponizing the financial system to terrorize vulnerable communities and undermine civil rights. It’s a stark reminder that behind the rhetoric of law and order lies a brutal, profit-driven machine intent on making immigration enforcement a nightmare for those caught in its grip.