Trump administration offers undocumented immigrants $1,000 to leave the country

Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times on May 5, 2025

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The Trump administration announced a plan Monday to try to ramp up the number of deportations: paying undocumented immigrants $1,000 if they return to their home country voluntarily.

The Department of Homeland Security called the plan a “historic opportunity for illegal aliens,” noting in a news release that it would also pay for travel assistance.

Any immigrant who used the CBP Home App to inform the government that they plan to return home, the department said, would receive a $1,000 payment after the government had confirmed their return.

“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. “This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens and is a 70% savings for US taxpayers.”

President Donald Trump has made mass deportations — a key platform of his 2024 election campaign — a priority in his first three months in office. But so far, the actual number of immigrants deported under his Republican administration has slightly lagged the number deported under his predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden, as fewer immigrants are now attempting to cross the U.S. border.

Last week, Trump escalated his showdown with Democratic-led states and cities on immigration enforcemen t, signing executive orders that direct federal agencies to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal agents in immigration enforcement.

The Trump administration is promoting its incentives to immigrants in the country illegally to leave on their own as a “dignified way to leave the U.S.” — one that it says will have them deprioritized for detention or being picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents if they demonstrate they’re making plans to depart. Self-deporting, the news release states, “may help preserve the option” for undocumented immigrants “to re-enter the United States legally in the future.”

The Trump administration also touts its plan as a deal for American taxpayers.

“Even with the cost of the stipend, it is projected that the use of CBP Home will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70%,” the Department of Homeland Security said in its release, noting that it costs more than $17,000, on average, to arrest, detain, and remove an undocumented immigrant.

Homeland Security said that an immigrant in the U.S. illegally recently used the program to receive a ticket for a flight from Chicago to Honduras, and that additional plane tickets have been booked for the next few weeks.