Trump Offers to Pay Illegal Immigrants to Leave

What a self-serving, nationalistic pig.

Imagine you wake in the middle of the night to unexpected, loud banging noises in the next room. You tiptoe into your kitchen to find a strange man has broken into your home and is fixing himself a nice plate of leftover pot roast. He’s also wearing your bathrobe and has filled a bag with some of your favorite decorative treasures. Instead of calling the cops, you box up his meal, hand him a hundred-dollar bill, and offer him a free ride back to wherever he came from—and he can even keep your Tibetan singing bowl.

That’s basically the equivalent of the Trump administration’s new self-deportation plan known as Project Homecoming. “Sure, you broke the law, but we’re gonna let that slide. We’re not going to arrest or even blacklist you—in fact, we’re going to pay your way home and give you a little spending money for your troubles. You’re welcome to come back and apply for citizenship the legal way, just like millions of immigrants have done before you.” Some call it harsh or cruel; I call it borderline concierge service for breaking and entering.

From the DHS press release:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a historic opportunity for illegal aliens to receive both financial and travel assistance to facilitate travel back to their home country through the CBP Home App. Any illegal alien who uses the CBP Home App to self-deport will also receive a stipend of $1,000 dollars, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.

“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest. DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App,” said Secretary Kristi Noem. “This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens and is a 70% savings for US taxpayers. Download the CBP Home App TODAY and self-deport.”

I’ll reiterate here—in case anyone glossed over the fine print—that this policy is an effort to address people who are living here illegally. As in, they broke the law. Naturally, the professional pearl-clutchers are acting like Trump personally offered to strap a bunch of innocent women and children to some of Elon’s rockets and launch them somewhere the sun don’t shine.

WaPo opinion columnist Theodore R. Johnson called the proposal a “dark insult” and claimed that “Paying immigrants to self-deport shows the president is running the country like a cutthroat business.” I mean, he’s not wrong about the last part—which is exactly why an overwhelming majority of Americans voted for him—but do you want to know what I think is darkly insulting? Telling the 24 million naturalized citizens who followed the law, filed the forms, waited the years, learned the language, passed the civics tests, swore the oaths of allegiance to their new homeland, and paid the same taxes as everyone else that they’re basically a bunch of chumps. Apparently, the new American dream is to break into the country, claim hardship, refuse to leave, and then get rewarded with a cool G and a plane ticket like you're on some twisted version of The Price Is Right.

The bottom line is people are being paid to leave the National Manor they snuck into through a broken window—and we’re supposed to be furious at the guy writing the check, not the squatters taking over the joint. What’s next—goody bags for shoplifters? Participation trophies for tax evaders? “Thank you for jaywalking—here’s a commemorative tote bag and a Chick-fil-A gift card”?

I love living in a cultural crockpot. I really do. Immigration—in the original, hopeful, welcoming sense—is the reason we aren’t all eating PB&Js on Wonder Bread for every meal or believing suburban achievement peaked with fanny packs and tuna casserole. It’s also why we have corner stores that never close, restaurants and food trucks where we can get authentic empanadas and bánh mì, and a dozen different options when we’re due for a manicure.

But when people game the system, that’s not noble. It’s not resourceful. It’s not “doing what you have to do.” It’s skipping the line and cheating every law-abiding citizen and then acting shocked when someone tells you to go back and wait your turn.

“The approach isn’t novel; other nations pay immigrants to leave,” Johnson conceded in his piece. “France has offered payments upward of $8,000, travel aid and in-kind reintegration assistance. Germany provides transportation, lump-sum payments and medical assistance. Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom have similar programs.”

“But for a place that has proudly proclaimed to be a ‘nation of immigrants’ and home to the American Dream, the country’s pay-to-go-away policy is particularly hypocritical. In the United States, today’s nativists always arise from yesterday’s immigrants. For them to tell other arrivals to go back home is evidence that they’ve forgotten where they come from. Paying undocumented immigrants to leave only cheapens things.”

In other words, because someone in your bloodline was born somewhere else a hundred years ago, you’re not allowed to have an opinion on trespassing today—unless that opinion involves free stuff and borders crafted out of pure ozone. Enforcing the law cheapens the American Dream—real Americans hand out prizes for breaking it!

What’s truly hilarious (if you enjoy your irony extra crispy) is that the people insisting that self-deportation is inhumane are the same ones who’ve damaged their vocal cords screaming that ICE is the Gestapo, deportation is barbaric, and that illegal immigrants are being treated like wounded soldiers left on the battlefield. But offer them a polite exit and a parting gift, and suddenly you’re history’s greatest monster.

“Even as we are a nation of immigrants we are also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws. I believe they must be held accountable,” Trump said.

Oh, wait. That was Obama (who deported more undocumented immigrants in his first term than Trump did in his).

News flash: we have borders for the same reason we have locks on our front doors—not because we’re greedy or we hate our neighbors, but because we care about what’s inside. The reason we have immigration laws is because laws are how nations function. If your first act upon arriving here is to violate those laws, you don’t get to be offended when someone suggests that maybe—just maybe—there are going to be consequences.

Do the people protesting this arguably compassionate solution realize there’s not a single republic you can just waltz into with all of your earthly possessions and plant a permanent flag without going through some sort of naturalization process? Every country on earth has some combination of income specifications, minimum bank balances, language tests, medical checks, proof of employment and health insurance requirements, and/or temporary resident fees (plus extras for dependants). Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are all proudly multicultural ‘nations of immigrants,’ too—but try strolling into Sydney or Vancouver without a visa and see how long the welcome mat stays out. But when the U.S. enforces basic entry laws, suddenly it’s a war crime. I guess ‘melting pots’ aren’t allowed to have lids.

From an earlier post I penned on the subject.

Some folks say financially incentivizing illegal immigrants to leave dilutes Trump’s “we will deport you no matter what” posturing. Others say it’s fiscally prudent, seeing as $1,000 is a literal fraction of the $17,000 it typically costs to deport someone without legal status.

And then there are the virtue signalers moaning about our obligation to provide a refuge for the persecuted, the same ones who can’t muster a single ounce of outrage about the women hiding from their abusive partners in their bathrooms, or the foster kids who get chewed up by a system that barely knows their names, or the children being sold into the sex trafficking trade by their own parents for drug money. Yes, it happens. Yes, it’s horrific. No one is celebrating when a single mom living here illegally has to choose between leaving her US-born children behind or take them back to El Salvador with her. It’s a tragedy of unfathomable proportions, and if your heart doesn’t ache for every unfortunate soul facing this hellish hardship, I believe the word for you is sociopath. But if you think real compassion means opening the floodgates and then poking a giant hole in the lifeboat, you’re not virtuous—you’re reckless. A nation’s empathy must be matched by its capacity. Otherwise, it’s not humanity. It’s negligence wrapped in a justice bumper sticker.

If you cut in line at the DMV, they don’t hand you a fat stack of cash and a ticket to Six Flags. You get sent to the back of the line, if you’re lucky.

And let’s be clear: This isn’t some dystopian roundup in the dead of night. Nobody’s being dragged. Nobody’s being shackled. They’re being handed resources and dignity on a silver platter and told, “Thank you for coming, here’s your safe exit and a travel stipend.” That’s not fascism. That’s Expedia.

Am I crazy? Cruel? Callous? Some combination of the three? I know you’ll let me know in the comments. ;)

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