THE Trump administration is offering undocumented migrants $1,000 and paid travel if they agree to leave the US voluntarily, the latest effort to ramp up mass deportations and slash enforcement costs.
The Department of Homeland Security said migrants who self-deport using the CBP Home app will receive the stipend once it’s verified that they’ve returned to their home country. Officials called the program a more efficient alternative to costly arrests and removals.
“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
The initiative marks a shift in how DHS handles removals that began earlier this year with a social media and television ad campaign ordering migrants to go home or risk being deported and never allowed back in.
Under President Joe Biden, the original CBP One app was used to schedule asylum interviews. Now in Trump’s second term, it’s been repurposed to encourage migrants to leave on their own.
Immigration lawyers and advocates have questioned the Trump administration’s claim that migrants who leave voluntarily may be able to return legally. Most people who have lived in the US without legal status face automatic bans that can last years, and waivers are rarely granted.
And some experts question how effective the program will be in the long run. While financial incentives may encourage departures in the short-term, they rarely stop people from returning or migrating again when they’re driven by forces like poverty, violence and civil unrest, said Christopher Blair, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University.
“One thing that is very difficult when you implement one of these kind of paid repatriation schemes is to actually get people to stay in their origin country for the foreseeable future,” Blair said in an interview. “You can pay people to go home, you can’t really pay them to stay.”
DHS projects that even with the new payout, the program will cut deportation costs by about 70%. The agency estimates that traditional enforcement — including arrest, detention and removal — costs taxpayers roughly $17,000 per person.
DHS said the program has already been used successfully, with one migrant recently receiving a flight from Chicago to Honduras. Additional travel arrangements have been booked for this week and next.
The rollout comes as deportations haven’t met the administration’s targets following a series of high-profile raids. So far this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made 66,000 arrests and deported about 65,600 people, according to the latest data.
The administration has also taken steps to narrow legal immigration pathways, pausing some green card applications and refusing to renew Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Venezuelans, though the courts have temporarily blocked that effort. Meanwhile, crossings at the southern border have plunged to a decades-low of about 7,000 in March. –BLOOMBERG
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