A U.S. immigration judge was slapped with a $1,000 fine and a 30-month debarment from federal service after for "serious violations" of prohibitions against federal employees making political statements by promoting then-presidential contender Hillary Clinton's immigration plan during a 2016 deportation hearing, officials said Monday.

The fine against the now-retired judge Carmene "Zsa Zsa" DePaolo was the maximum possible civil penalty that she faced under the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity and comments in the workplace by federal employees.

An administrative law judge who issued the decision said that the California-based DePaolo's actions while serving as an immigration judge employed by the U.S. Justice Department "merit a considerable sanction given the public nature of her position."

The case stemmed from a March 2016 hearing in a detention facility on California's border with Mexico, where DePaolo, who had been an immigration judge since 1995, was considering the case of a person who was facing deportation and a 10-year bar on re-entering the United States.

At that hearing, which was open to the public, DePaolo said the decade-long ban was "a pretty harsh thing" that Clinton planned to change, provided that "the Senate becomes a Democratic body and there's some hope that they can actually pass immigration legislation," according to officials.

DePaolo also said at the hearing that Republicans "aren't going to do anything about" about immigration policy "if they can help it ... other than trying to deport everybody."

The hearing took place about eight months before Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, lost to Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. And the hearing came just two months before California, the state where the hearing occurred, was sceduled to hold its Democratic presidential primary, a fact noted in the law judge's opinion.

Those comments led the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to file a complaint against DePaolo, claiming that she violated the Hatch Act's prohibitions and had used her authority or influence to interfere with, or affect the result of an election.

"When a federal immigration judge in a public setting uses her position to advocate for partisan campaign outcomes, that's a real problem," said Special Counsel Henry Kerner at the time, when he called for "significant disciplinary action" against her.

Kerner's office is an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency, which is focuses on rules protecting and regulating federal employees.