The Trump administration will pay $1,000 each to undocumented immigrants who “self-deport” out of the country. The Department of Homeland Security says $1,000 is far cheaper than it costs to pay ICE agents to round them up and then deport them.
Immigrants who self-deport can avoid arrest by federal immigration agents if they choose to take Trump’s offer.
The DHS will pay for commercial flights out of the US, and then send the cash once they confirm they’ve left.
DHS claims the program will save taxpayers 70% over the cost of rounding up and deporting each illegal immigrant.
According to DHS, it costs taxpayers an average of $17,121 for the feds to arrest, detain and deport a single illegal immigrant.
Stephen Miller, President Trump’s top homeland security adviser, said on X that “savings are as much as $1 million per illegal alien family given the long-term costs of free welfare and public support.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that “self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way” for illegal immigrants to avoid arrest by ICE.
But taxpayers wonder what will happen if the immigrants leave the country, get the cash, then come right back.
In unrelated news, President Trump plans to reopen Alcatraz to hold illegal immigrants and gangbangers.
“I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Alcatraz is a former federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island off the shore of San Francisco.
The prison closed in 1963 because it cost too much to operate (about $10 per day per prisoner).
Mob figure Al Capone was the most famous prisoner in Alcatraz.
