Mike Lee pursuing bill to bolster fines on immigrants in the country illegally, their employers

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• U.S. Sen. Mike Lee is pursuing a measure to increase the fines faced by immigrants in the country illegally and their employers.
• It's the latest prong of his varied legislative efforts, still facing scrutiny, spurred by concerns about the implications of immigration.
• He's also pursuing the SAVE America Act to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Mike Lee wants to increase the fines applicable to immigrants who enter the country illegally and the businesses that employ them.

It's the latest prong of the senator's varied legislative efforts, still facing scrutiny, spurred by concerns about the implications of immigration in the United States. He's also pressing for the SAVE America Act, requiring proof of citizenship from voters to vote in federal elections, and a measure to make it tougher for immigrants in the country illegally to evade prosecution when they're charged with breaking the law.

"Americans are footing the bill for illegal immigrants who use public services, benefits and schools intended for citizens," Lee, a Utah Republican, said in a statement on his latest initiative.

The new legislative effort, the Illegal Immigration Cost Recovery Act, would double the civil penalties for immigrants who enter the country, immigrants facing deportation who don't leave the country and businesses that hire immigrants in the country illegally:

• Penalties for illegal entry would go from an inflation adjusted base of $100-$500 to $200-$1,000, according to a press release from U.S. Sen Rick Scott, R-Florida, the measure's main sponsor.
• The penalty for failure to depart the country would go from an inflation-adjusted figure of $998 to $1,996.
• Penalties for employers that knowingly hire an immigrant in the country illegally would go from an inflation adjusted range of $716 to $5,724 for a first offense to $1,432-$11,448. Penalties for employers with more than two offenses would rise from the $8,586-$28,619 range to $17,172-$57,238.

The bill language doesn't spell out how fines against immigrants for illegal entry or failing to leave the country would be collected. Moreover, Lee noted that such fines historically haven't been collected.

"The law has long required financial penalties for illegal immigrants, but no president other than Donald Trump has stood up for the American people by enforcing them," he said.

Scott alluded to the "unfair cost burden on Americans" caused by illegal immigration, saying the proposal "ensures illegal aliens can't keep ripping off our country and undermining the hardworking Americans who pay taxes and follow the rules." But he didn't spell out how fine collection would occur.

The Trump administration last year announced a new "streamlined" process to inform immigrants in the country illegally of the fines they face. In a statement last year, the Department of Homeland Security said it had issued around 10,000 fine notices since Trump's return to office in early 2025, though it didn't say how much money it had collected as a result.

Trump has voiced strong support for the SAVE America Act, but it still has yet to get a hearing by the full Senate. It would create proof-of-citizenship and voter identity card requirements for voters in a bid to prevent immigrants from voting, but critics argue it could disenfranchise some voters, among other things.

At least in Utah, some say voting by immigrants, which is illegal, is virtually nonexistent. Some federal GOP lawmakers, meantime, believe the SAVE America Act doesn't have a path forward, the Deseret News reported Wednesday.

Lee's measure targeting immigrants in the court system, the Flight Risk Reduction Act, is sitting in a committee.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

ImmigrationPoliticsUtahVoces de Utah

Tim Vandenack

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Tim Vandenack covers immigration, multicultural issues and Northern Utah for KSL. He worked several years for the Standard-Examiner in Ogden and has lived and reported in Mexico, Chile and along the U.S.-Mexico border.