The Department of Homeland Security has doubled the self-deportation incentive for undocumented immigrants to $2,600.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security said it’s more than doubling the “exit bonus” for people who entered the United States illegally to self-deport.
The stipend went up from $1,000 to $2,600 for those who use the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App to leave the country.
Filing through the app provides free travel, fine forgiveness for failure to depart, and a $2,600 bonus to “facilitate travel back to their home country or another country where they have lawful status.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said nearly 2.2 million people have voluntarily self-deported, and nearly 100,000 used the app in the last year.
“Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return,” she said in a press release announcing the increase.
The increase was made to “celebrate one year of this administration.” The press release warned the offer “may not last long.”
DHS last year said it cost $17,121 to arrest, detain and remove someone in the U.S. illegally. Wednesday’s press release said that the number is now $18,245.
Voluntary returns don’t require extensive government-to-government negotiations to get a country to take back its citizens, which can be a major benefit. There are a number of countries that either don’t take back their own citizens who are being returned by U.S. immigration enforcement officials or make that process challenging.
A 2011 study by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute found that there were about 128 programs — often referred to as pay-to-go programs — around the world.
But the study found that, with a few exceptions, such as one program in the 1990s that returned people from Germany to Bosnia, these voluntary return programs generally failed to encourage large numbers of people to go home.
It is not clear whether these programs resulted in migrants who took the payments actually staying in their home countries and not trying to emigrate again.
It comes at a time when immigration officers are swarming city streets with aggressive tactics like in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.
Armed and masked law enforcement officers are being witnessed smashing car windows, yanking people from vehicles, chasing and wrestling others to the ground and hauling them away — images playing out in endless loops on TVs and other screens.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.