When it comes to immigration, President Donald Trump’s second term is getting off to a rocky start. Despite promising the “largest deportation operation in history” and forcing thousands of other federal law enforcement officers to drop their normal work and join forces with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, deportations are nowhere near the record levels he has threatened. With no realistic prospect of hitting 1 million deportations per year, as promised, the Trump administration is instead turning to a new idea: paying people to leave on their own and threatening draconian punishments if they don’t. But as with any “deal” Trump offers, anyone considering the offer should read the fine print first.
Trump’s new policy, implemented by executive order earlier this month, offers undocumented immigrants a choice. If they leave using the repurposed “CBP Home” app, they will be deprioritized for arrest, the Department of Homeland Security will buy them a plane ticket home and the government will provide $1,000 when their departure is confirmed. If they don’t, DHS threatens not just arrest, detention and deportation, but also prosecution, fines, and even civil forfeiture of personal property.
The Trump administration’s messaging around this new policy has also spread confusion and misinformation.
The idea of paying immigrants to leave is not new. During the Great Depression, state and local governments paid hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to “repatriate,” sometimes voluntarily and sometimes not. In the modern era, the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration has long worked with countries in the Western Hemisphere to help migrants voluntarily repatriate. But the federal government has never operated a program like this before.
The “benefits” being offered are fairly slim: $1,000, to be blunt, is not a lot of money for undocumented immigrants — most of whom have lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years — to give up on the American dream. The cost of returning to a country some have not seen in decades will likely be far more than $1,000. Beyond the monetary cost are the intangible costs. Nearly all undocumented immigrants have jobs. Millions have U.S.-citizen children, spouses or loved ones. They have deep roots in this country and in communities here, and $1,000 likely won’t be enough of an incentive to give all that up.
The Trump administration’s messaging around this new policy has also spread confusion and misinformation. At first, the president and his own officials suggested that people who agree to leave through this program may be allowed back in, with Trump stating “maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they’re good people,” and DHS announcing in a statement that the program “may help preserve the option for an illegal alien to re-enter the United States legally.”
For some people, this may be an enticing offer, especially those who have only been here for a short period of time and risk losing their status under Trump. But these promises of a possible re-entry ring hollow. The first sign of a bait and switch came when the White House issued an executive order which twice said that people would only be eligible for benefits if they agreed to “permanently” leave the U.S. Beyond that, most undocumented immigrants who have been here for at least one year without status are subject to a 10-year bar on re-entry from the moment they leave the country.
Others may be hit with even harsher penalties, depending on their circumstances when they leave, or lose eligibility for protections like cancellation of removal by departing. And crucially, leaving the country may mean giving up on a very real chance at staying here legally under laws and processes that already exist. Given this, it’s critical for anyone considering taking this offer to speak with a qualified and competent attorney first.
Communities across the country will feel the impact of millions of people receding from public life. Alongside this new offer, the Trump administration is hanging its hopes on another policy to encourage self-deportations: “registration.” Under an antiquated World War II-era law, every noncitizen is now required to carry proof of registration with them at all times. For generations, undocumented immigrants had no way to “register”; now that the Trump administration has set up a process to do that, they’re setting up another difficult choice: either come forward to present yourself to be fingerprinted and registered (and risk immediate deportation) or be criminally prosecuted for failure to register. Federal prosecutors have already begun bringing charges under this law, for the first time in generations. Whether any of these policies encourage people to leave remains unknown. For now, the biggest impact of Trump’s new self-deportation policies is being felt in the growing sense of unease and fear that has propagated throughout America’s immigrant neighborhoods. Trump has achieved this through splashy outrages, like the imprisonment of migrants in El Salvador, as well as a blitz of enforcement operations targeting homes and worksites, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ads on TV, YouTube and social media telling immigrants to leave now or be jailed. For some people, living in an environment like this will be enough incentive to leave, and the free plane ticket and $1,000 may be enough support to help them accomplish that goal. But for the many others whose ties to this country cannot be so easily broken, this effort may drive them further underground and into deeper distress. While it may be true that the direct financial cost of a migrant choosing to leave on their own is cheaper than a full deportation, the consequences of a climate of fear cannot be measured in dollars alone. As Trump ramps up his showy cruelty in order to send a message, communities across the country will feel the impact of millions of people receding from public life — even if they don’t leave for good.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick is a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. 
