WASHINGTON \u2014 The Trump administration says it is going to pay $1,000 to immigrants in the United States illegally who voluntarily return to their home country.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release Monday that it\u2019s also paying for travel assistance and that those people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government that they plan to return home will be \u201cdeprioritized\u201d for detention and removal by immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest. DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App,\u201d Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said.<\/p>\n
The department said it already paid for a plane ticket for one migrant to return home to Honduras from Chicago and said more tickets have been booked for this week and next.<\/p>\n
Breaking News<\/p>\n
The stipend and potential airfare for migrants who voluntarily depart would cost less than an actual deportation, the agency said. The average cost of arresting, detaining and deporting someone without legal status is currently about $17,000, according to DHS.<\/p>\n
Related: Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas under wartime Alien Enemies Act<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally a centerpiece of his campaign, but that is a costly, resource-intensive endeavor.<\/p>\n
While the Republican administration is pushing Congress for a massive increase in resources for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department responsible for removing people from the country, it\u2019s also pushing people in the country illegally to \u201cself-deport.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has coupled this self-deportation push with television ads threatening action against people in the U.S. illegally and social media images showing immigration enforcement arrests and migrants being sent to a prison in El Salvador.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has often portrayed self-deportation as a way for migrants to preserve their ability to return to the U.S. someday.<\/p>\n
But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, which advocates for immigrants, said there\u2019s a lot for migrants to be cautious about in the latest offer from Homeland Security.<\/p>\n
He said it\u2019s often worse for people to leave the country and not fight their case in immigration court, especially if they\u2019re already in removal proceedings. He said if migrants are in removal proceedings and don\u2019t show up in court they can automatically get a deportation order and leaving the country usually counts as abandoning many applications for relief including asylum applications.<\/p>\n
Homeland Security is not indicating that it is closely coordinating with the immigration courts so that there are no repercussions for people in immigration court if they leave, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople\u2019s immigration status is not as simple as this makes it out to be,\u201d Reichlin-Melnick said.<\/p>\n
He questioned where Homeland Security would get the money and the authorization to make the payments \u2014 and he suggested they are necessary because the administration can\u2019t arrest and remove as many people as it has promised so it has to encourage people to do it on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not getting their numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has deported 152,000 people since Jan. 20, according to DHS, lower than the 195,000 deported from February-April last year under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s administration has tried to encourage migrants to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines, trying to strip away legal status, and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador.<\/p>\n
In March, the administration launched a rebranded app called CBP Home to facilitate self-deportation. The app, previously called CBP One, was used by the Biden administration to allow migrants to enter the U.S. legally.<\/p>\n