ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- For the last few months, the Trump administration has offered undocumented immigrants nothing more than scapegoating, harsh rhetoric and one-way passage to scary foreign lands.

That was the stick. Now for the carrot.

The administration is offering a $1,000 stipend plus travel expenses to undocumented immigrants who volunteer to leave the United States and return to their countries of origin.

"If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest," Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a recent statement.

Avoid arrest? Yeah, right. The reason this deal is being offered because it is impossible to find and remove every undocumented immigrant in the United States. There are too many.

How many? Liberals put that figure at 10 to 12 million, while conservatives insist the correct number is more than 20 million. Either way, it's a lot of people.

By the way, these folks didn't invade. They were invited. The invitation came from U.S. employers who put up "Help Wanted" signs and then weren't picky about whether the people who showed up to help were legally authorized to work.

Folks, that's how we got here. Republicans blame Democrats for "opening the border." That's baloney. The last three Democratic presidents tried to impersonate Republicans by cracking down on the U.S.-Mexico border. People come here for the promise of gainful employment. Don't act so surprised. T'was always thus.

Paying someone $1,000 to get them to voluntarily leave the country seems like a heck of a deal for American taxpayers. According to U.S. immigration officials, it currently costs on average about $17,121 to arrest, detain and remove an undocumented immigrant.

Yet I see at least three problems with the latest return-to-sender scheme the administration has cooked up.

No. 1: Financially, this deal doesn't pencil out for the migrants. In 35 years of writing about immigration, I have interviewed dozens of undocumented immigrants. Today, some of those people could make $100 to $150 per day. If so, they would earn out the amount of the administration's measly stipend in a little over a week. Imagine what they earn in a month, or in six months. The administration would get more takers if they offered $5,000 or $8,000. That would still be a substantial savings from what it would cost to arrest and remove them.

No. 2: Not all the motives for staying here have to do with economics. Maybe the migrants have wives or husbands, children or other family members that they are reluctant to leave behind. Maybe taking these loved ones out of the country with them isn't an option. Maybe the migrants have been here for a couple of decades, and they feel invested in their pursuit of the American dream and don't want to abandon the quest. Maybe they feel as if they have nowhere else to go. Money isn't everything.

No. 3: A deal falls apart without trust. Neither party to this negotiation has any reason to trust the other side. Immigrants must use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's "Home" app, even though some who used it in the past were deported. The Department of Homeland Security says that immigrants who self-deport will be "de-prioritized for detention and removal ahead of their departure." Will that happen? Finally, officials say, leaving on your own may "keep the door open for legal immigration into the U.S. at a later date." Don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, it's weird that Americans are even discussing the idea of bribing undocumented immigrants to self-deport. And it is even weirder that the idea came from a Republican administration.

The political parties hate it when you remind them of what they used to be and what they once claimed to believe. After all, politics is where honesty and consistency go to die.

But a columnist has to have some fun now and then. So let me school MAGA on the Republican Party which -- over the years -- have talked themselves silly on immigration.

Nowhere is the Republicans' incoherent double-talk on immigration more in evidence than when someone broaches the question of what the United States should do with the millions of undocumented migrants who reside within its borders.

For decades, when confronted with legislation in Congress that would offer amnesty to undocumented immigrants, Republicans opposed it. They said that Americans should not "reward" lawlessness.

Now they've settled on the exact amount of the reward.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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