In addition to paying illegals $1,000 to self-deport, the Department of Homeland Security will also cover volunteers' travel assistance. The related news release explains that people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government they plan to return home will be "deprioritized" for detention and removal by immigration enforcement.
The Biden administration used it as a tool to allow nearly one million migrants to schedule appointments to enter the country. Then it was called CBP One.
"If the focus of this administration and the American people is on driving down the unauthorized population in the United States so that we have as few illegal aliens as possible and a better idea of who is actually present in the United States, that's a pretty cost-effective way to do it," comments Art Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
He figures Trump's plan will cost somewhere between $4,500 and $7,000 per deportation; DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says it normally costs more than $17,000 to apprehend, detain, and eventually deport an illegal alien.
"From that perspective, it's going to be a lot more cost effective, a lot more resource effective, and a lot surer way of driving down the illegal population and encouraging people to leave on their own," Arthur submits.
Questions remain about how DHS will ensure that people have actually gone home, but the concept is generally supported, especially by advocates of less illegal immigration.
Some immigrants are insulted by the offer, but DHS says the first to take the deal has already returned to Honduras. More tickets have been booked for this week and next, though DHS did not share how many.
