DHS More Than Doubles ‘Self-Deportation’ Cash Payment but Critics Call Program Deceptive

The offer “may not last long,” the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday as it announced that a more than doubling of the stipend for those who choose to “self-deport” from $1,000 to $2,600 in honor of President Donald Trump hitting the one-year mark of his second term. But the offer also may not be legitimate at all, advocates say. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the announcement. “Because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”

It’s part of Trump’s “Project Homecoming,” which was launched in May to encourage unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S. voluntarily. DHS first offered a $1,000 stipend and travel assistance to those who returned to their home country through the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home mobile application. During the holidays, the offer was raised to $3,000, with DHS saying it was “generously TRIPLING” the stipend for the Christmas season for those who register on the app by the end of 2025. 

The program, which is funded by $250 million that was originally meant for helping to resettle refugees, is meant to reduce deportation costs. According to the latest DHS announcement, a single enforced deportation costs over $18,000, while the $2,600 stipend as well as other costs including comped airfare for those who “self-deport” through the CBP Home app comes out to just over $5,000.

But while Noem says that 2.2 million people have voluntarily “self-deported” since last January, including “tens of thousands” who used the CBP Home app, the Atlantic reported in December that the overall figure, which is not backed by verifiable data, is implausible and would have had noticeable effects on the labor market. Moreover, the Atlantic calculated that the true cost of each of some 35,000 “self-deportations,” when factoring in a $200-million advertising campaign for the program, was about $7,500.

ProPublica also reported in October that of some 25,000 immigrants who had departed through the CBP Home app by then, many did not receive assistance from DHS.

And the Guardian reported in December that while some who “self-deported” received a $1,000 stipend, others either never did or encountered significant delays and difficulties. Others claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials dangled the stipend to deceive them, even though they were not eligible for the program, into leaving the U.S. without any benefits or into giving up their location, which could be used to detain and deport them. And while the program makes out that those who participate may be eligible to return to the U.S. under legal pathways, that also hasn’t been true for some, who have found themselves facing yearslong or even lifetime bans from reentry.

These mirror critics’ earlier warnings about the program. When the program incentivizing “self-deportation” came out last year, the American Immigration Lawyers Association called it a “deeply misleading and unethical trick,” adding that the government’s offer “is not as simple—or as safe—as it sounds.”

“Offering undocumented migrants a cash stipend to leave the country is neither sound policy nor smart politics,” attorney Raul Reyes wrote for the Hill last year. “And with this Administration’s antipathy toward migrants, it could well be a trap with life-altering consequences.”