DHS Offers Migrants a $3000 “Holiday Bonus” to Self-Deport by the End of the Year
The Department of Homeland Security has tripled its “exit bonus” for undocumented migrants who voluntarily depart the United States through self-deportation, increasing the financial incentive from $1,000 to $3,000 for those who register with the U.S. government and depart the country by the end of the calendar year.
DHS says all qualified participants who leave by Dec. 31, 2025, will also receive free airfare to their home countries and be waived of certain civil fines or penalties tied to remaining illegally in the U.S., if they voluntarily self-deport using the rebranded CBP Home app.
Under the Trump administration’s policy, migrants are instructed to use the platform to signal their intent to depart. If determined to be eligible, DHS officials say they will receive travel assistance plus the $3,000 paid stipend once the U.S. government confirms the individual has left the country.
In a statement to the press, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says that those who do not take advantage of the temporary incentive will be “found,” “arrested” and “never return” to the U.S.
The CBP One app was originally built under the previous administration to schedule asylum appointments, but under the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, it has been remodeled under a voluntary departure framework to permit those without lawful status to track their exit.
The DHS statement went on to say the bonus stipend is part of a holiday season campaign aimed at accelerating removals and reducing taxpayer costs, with travel support typically considered less expensive than traditional detention and deportation operations. As of May 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimated the average cost to arrest, detain and remove an undocumented migrant is approximately $17,000.
As part of the self-deportation program, DHS says participants are deprioritized for ICE arrest and detention so long as they demonstrate “meaningful strides” toward leaving the U.S., though officials have not released detailed guidance explaining how long that protection lasts or how any compliance is judged.
DHS says that since January 2025, 1.9 million undocumented immigrants have “voluntarily self-deported,” with “tens of thousands” doing so through the CBP Home program specifically.
Not sure whether this signals success or failure, but certainly if 1.9M have self-deported, it is a success. Interesting since every time tried before, in several countries, the opposite happened. Last time we tried it, in 2008, we got 8 out of a possible 457,000. I would be fired for that business case. Perhaps they didn’t offer the unconstitutional advantage of fear and loathing in their advertising. He gave them a week to leave town, is that ludicrous? My dollar off coupons last longer. What is even up with a program doomed to failure before it begins, due to expiration in a week.
The only issue is the administration lies: from top to bottom. All administrations spin, most lie somewhere along the line, Obama’s Benghazi movie moment, Biden’s whatever about Hunter, it happens. This administration lies from start to finish, top to bottom; it’s literally a badge of honor. So, noem, I do not believe Crusty. Some of their lies:
First, they had the Epstein client list, the files in a notebook, oops sorry. All sorts of lies, false claims, and obstructions here.
Then they claimed ten kids died from covid vaccine offering no data in support. A lie.
Trump claimed $17T in foreign investment when his Whitehouse website said 8.8T and that was proven as inflated. He then said 18T as the website was still under 10T. They just have no morals so being caught, who cares.
His cabinet officer claimed he didn’t take a $50K bribe in a paper bag when the FBI and the tape showed different. It’s on camera and no one admits where it ended up. Who cares?
Remember “every price is down?” How about drug prices will go down 2,000 or 3,000%?
Foreign countries pay the tariffs. Portland is burning down.
No murders in DC for six months — there were 50.
I can go on, but when does braggadocio become bullshit?
For Kristmas No-one-noem, let’s face it, like the hobbit Bimbo Bondi, she will say anything including:
During her congressional hearing, accused of lying to Congress and the American people to claim U.S. citizens or military veterans had not been deported under her leadership. Later, under pressure from the Press who had the goods, she sent a letter to Congress contradicted her claim, citing cases of deported veterans and U.S. citizens.
Her 2024 book, No Going Back, contained several verifiable falsehoods, later retracted or blamed on her ghostwriter. Noem claimed to have met and “stared down” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. This was widely debunked, and Noem later requested the anecdote be removed from future editions, stating she “should not have included that anecdote” The book also falsely claimed she had canceled a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, a meeting the French government says never happened. Noem accused the FBI of leaking details of an ICE raid without evidence and called the agency corrupt. She also claimed tribal leaders were profiting from drug cartels, leading to condemnation and her being banned from some tribal lands in South Dakota.
She lied about FEMA’s response to the Hawaii wildfires, she attempted to intervene in her daughter’s real estate appraiser’s license process, and she is always misusing state airplanes.
But wait, no doubt there is plenty more….
I’m a numbers guy, so let’s take a look at some for deportation highlighting the real possibility these folks are gaslighting us. In the next post.
First, they have lied about this since before you even voted and you believed. There is no way they can deport over ten million, much less 20 million in four years. It is literally called physics. Now that they are in it to win it, no numbers can be verified and validated and many are easily seen as lies. There is no transparency, no goals, constantly shifting priorities, basically the public is treated as mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed manure (that one’s for you, namer!).
Here is the pre-election math: 20M = 5m a year. We are not even close. It can’t be done.
On this one, the number is 1.9M self-deported. Everyone says: cannot be verified. They have been called, they have been asked, thwy do nor respond. Why? Bill Sheridan unprofessionally states 1.9M without that truthful caveat any professional journalist would add.
Fortune states based on ICE/DHS data that as of December, Trump has deported 261,000 people. ICE itself claims 285K arrests, makes sense when you hear the current detained numbers, you know, where we take hardworking folks adding to our gdp and we stop that work and give them food and lodging on the taxpayer’s dime. If these low numbers are the case, he is beating the fuck out of ICE to get the numbers up; might explain the cruel and unusual better when you realize the failure of the Trump plan on the numbers.
If that number is good, and we are kind, give him 500K by end of year — that’s 2M in four years, plus 1.9M self-deports which is only 7M to 17M under the goal. Given the 1.9M is a lie, the failure is probably much greater. If 19M is true, and 500K is real, why offer the spiff for the self-deports.
The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff reports: “Nearly nine months later, about 35,000 people have used CBP Home to leave the country, according to figures I obtained from two DHS officials who track the program. These folks were looking at the travel budget to do that. Given the cost of the advertising blitz, as well as the airfare and cash payments, it works out to about $7,500 per self-deportation.” Folks, that’s a horse of a different color and way different from Noem’s 1.9m , but closer to the 2008 hateful 8 failure.
A more important numerical piece for me is the money. To launch this, Trump spends $200M of your tax dollars in advertising. That’s on top of the extra $20B on top of $10B we currently pay for ICE today; $30B a year now for ICE; that’s a lot of masks. We allocated over $170B to border and interior enforcement over he next four years creating a new military-deportation complex. Louisiana is reopening closed jails on the money. Some of the planes, for PR purposes, were military at $1M a flight. What do you think the Blackhawk attack in Chicago cost?
They are not transparent, do not share plans, or goals, and ask yourself: when the brown people are gone, what will they do with all this manpower, apparatus, infrastructure, and assets? Knock, knock, anyone home?
Bottom line is Bill should dig a little deeper rather than just reprinting the administration’s press piece verbatim. We are spending twice as much here as we do for SNAP. About the same as veteran benefits. Twice education, twice housing, three times energy. Think about what we could do if we break the ICE. That’s a lot of money for a misdemeanor. Is it politics or profit: it is not the later and I dare anyone to prove elsewise. We are taking huge deficit, the largest in four years, for all of this.
There is one truth in not being transparent: if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.