More Than 200,000 Migrants Have Taken Trump Up On His Offer To Get Paid For Self-deporting

Offers of up to $3,000 per person person helped spur much than 200,000 migrants to "self-deport" from nan U.S. — but astir half made nan move while locked up successful detention centers, according to a study Tuesday.

The voluntary wide exodus started slowly, pinch only astir 24,000 group signing up during nan six months aft nan Department of Homeland Security launched nan widely advertised program successful May 2025, Axios said, citing soul agency data.

But White House officials — including lawman main of unit Stephen Miller — pressured DHS to ramp up nan operation, called Project Homecoming, an unidentified root told Axios.

"They wanted for illustration thousands pushed done connected a regular basis, and we were putting done for illustration dozens," nan root said.

In a connection to The Independent, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson didn't contradict nan report, saying, "Anyone successful nan state illegally should self-deport. Otherwise, they will beryllium deported."

In August, a staffer pinch nan since-dissolved, advertisement hoc Department of Government Accountability — formerly headed by billionaire Elon Musk — reportedly started bringing Project Homecoming lawsuit managers into migrant detention centers.

"For nan first time, personification walks successful and goes, 'Hey, who present conscionable wants to spell home?' And everybody's like, 'I want to spell home,'" 1 root told Axios.

DHS besides accrued nan rate inducement from $1,000 to $2,600 successful precocious January, aft temporarily raising it to $3,000 during a 10-day play successful December that included Christmas.

Migrants who motion up person free airplane flights, successful summation to their alleged exit bonuses.

A full of 132,000 group person near nan U.S. done nan program, pinch different 70,000 waiting to leave, according to Axios.

Those numbers bespeak an 180 percent summation complete nan 72,000 Project Homecoming self-deportations reported successful March by CNN, which cited an soul DHS document.

Trump campaigned connected a promise to “carry retired nan largest home deportation cognition successful American history," pinch his management mounting an soul extremity of expelling 1 cardinal undocumented immigrants annually.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute past twelvemonth published a study that said "historical precedents" suggested rate incentives wouldn't lead to galore self-deportations, noting that a comparable 2008 U.S. programme "drew conscionable 8 participants."

On Tuesday, an institute spokesperson told The Independent that because DHS hasn't released "regular, elaborate reporting" connected Project Homecoming, "the deficiency of information transparency astir nan program, its funding, and its outcomes make it difficult to comment" connected nan numbers reported by Axios.

"Broadly, we tin opportunity that historically, pay-to-go programs successful nan U.S. and elsewhere person exhibited constricted success," spokesperson Michelle Middlestadt said.