In today’s episode of America’s Next Top Deportation Scheme, the Trump administration has rolled out a bold new plan for undocumented immigrants: we’ll pay you to leave! Yes, really. For the low, low price of your human dignity, you too can collect a $1,000 “thank you for participating” check and a one-way ticket out of the country, courtesy of an administration that treats empathy like a communicable disease.
This genius-level brainchild is being pitched as a “voluntary departure” program—a kind of Uber-for-self-deportation where people can request their exit through a Customs and Border Protection app called “CBP One.” Just tap, agree to get out, and boom! Trump’s America even throws in a complimentary stipend to soften the blow of being booted from the only home you’ve known for decades. Think of it as the airline miles version of immigration reform, if the airlines hated you and never planned to let you fly again.
Of course, the Department of Homeland Security is spinning this like it’s a kindness: “We’re just trying to help people avoid the trauma of ICE raids and detention centers!” Sure. DHS is also claiming that self-deporting “may help preserve the option for an illegal alien to re-enter the United States legally in the future.”
And the immigrants don’t receive the $1,000 until they can prove they are back in their home countries, which means they’d have to trust that DHS would send the funds.
Let’s be honest—this isn’t humanitarianism. It’s PR. The administration knows it can’t round up 11 million undocumented immigrants overnight, so why not bribe them into leaving and call it policy? It’s not coercion if there’s a check involved, right? Right?
Critics, naturally, are wondering if this is just one big data-harvesting trap. After all, it’s not every day the government invites you to upload your information into an app run by the same agency known for accidentally detaining U.S. citizens and separating families. Lawyers are warning that once you register to leave, good luck ever legally coming back—even if your kid was born here, or you’ve been paying taxes since the Bush administration. It’s basically the immigration version of “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melchick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wasn’t the least bit convinced by the government’s claim that those who self-deport would ever be welcomed back to the U.S.
He wrote in a post on Twitter/X Monday that the government’s offer was an “outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court.” Having a deportation order would make it harder to return, and the DHS’s offer would “sabotage” immigration cases, he added.
It is incredibly important for all reporting on this to emphasize that DHS's claim that people who do this will be able to return is, in many cases, an outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court. https://t.co/ECOysM30vk [1]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) May 5, 2025 [2]
Reichlin-Melchick also wrote that there was reason to doubt that DHS even had the authority to offer financial assistance to immigrants who chose to self-deport. “No law directly authorizes DHS to pay plane tickets and offer reimbursements to people leaving the country,” he noted.
This move also raises VERY serious questions about statutory authority and funding sources.
No law directly authorizes DHS to pay plane tickets and offer reimbursements to people leaving the country. https://t.co/9ZQVIvka0q [3]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) May 5, 2025 [4]
The only legal authority that allowed for the government to deport immigrants “desirous of being so removed” also included a “near-total ban on reentry,” Reichlin-Melchick wrote in another post.
The closest legal authority which might apply here is 8 U.S.C. § 1260, which authorizes using funding to deport "aliens falling into distress" who are "desirous of being so removed."
But that law also imposes a near-total ban on reentry, so if DHS is using that it's even worse! pic.twitter.com/mGQICKaqjP [5]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) May 5, 2025 [6]
“Any alien so removed shall be ineligible to apply for or receive a visa or other documentation for readmission, or to apply for admission to the United States except with the prior approval of the Attorney General,” states U.S. Code Title 8 Section 1260.
And in case this all felt too gentle, don’t forget that Team Trump is still pitching ideas like reopening Alcatraz for migrant detention. Because nothing says “land of the free” like shipping asylum seekers to a defunct maximum-security prison. Add in proposed international agreements to offload migrants to other countries like unwanted Amazon returns, and you’ve got a policy platform that reads like satire, if only it weren’t terrifyingly real.
But hey, maybe this is what they mean by “dignified” removal—$1,000 and a free flight to the very country you fled, in exchange for stepping out of line and making life more convenient for Trump’s deportation math.
So if you’re undocumented and looking for a way to make a quick grand while being erased from the country’s moral conscience, congratulations—there’s an app for that. Just don’t expect a return ticket.