When President Donald Trump returned to office, he faced the monumental task of reversing the greatest illegal immigration crisis in American history. He and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem knew we needed to take an all-of-the-above approach to fix it.
To that end, DHS has announced that, in addition to paying for and arranging flights out of America for any and all illegal immigrants who want to self-deport voluntarily, it will offer illegal immigrants a $1,000 stipend once they are confirmed to be back in their home countries. This innovative approach to reverse the Biden border crisis will save money and help save this country, just as Trump promised to do.
That “reward” is offered through the CBP Home app. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it originally was the tool former President Joe Biden used to fast-track the destruction of the United States.
The Biden administration created the CBP One app for foreign nationals so they could enter our country as quickly as possible. The Trump administration took that same app, changed its name, and changed its purpose. Now the CBP Home app is being used to get as many illegal immigrants as possible to self-deport.
While conservatives are generally on board with promoting self-deportation, some take issue with the $1,000 stipend. This is certainly understandable. But ultimately this plan will create significant savings for taxpayers while incentivizing illegal immigrants to leave.
Here’s why: Right now, the average cost of a single deportation — including arrest, detainment, processing, and removal — is north of $17,100. By contrast, the cost of a government-assisted self-deportation — which includes airfare, translation services, and the stipend — amounts to only about $4,500.
That’s a 70% cost reduction, but the long-term cost savings could be significantly higher. As White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller has said, “Each deportation of an illegal alien household will save taxpayers up to $1 million, based on long-term benefits provided to illegals.”
In other words, the CBP Home program is the fiscally conservative option. We can facilitate three self-deportations for less than the price of one deportation by force.
But perhaps even more important than the fiscal upsides are the broader security benefits. The program frees up law enforcement to go after immigrants who refuse to leave on their own, some of whom are engaged in other illegal activity.
Some call this approach unprecedented. They’re right. This is Trump and Noem’s innovative leadership applied to a massive, complex, expensive problem.
Biden, former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and their cronies in the federal bureaucracy spent four years systematically demolishing our immigration system. They threw our borders wide open. They hamstrung law enforcement. They incentivized illegal immigrants to come into America, greeting them with billions in taxpayer-funded welfare. They ignored rampant crime, drugs, and human trafficking.
Worst of all, they did so deliberately. The Biden administration sought to ensure Trump, or any Republican, would be incapable of fixing our broken immigration system — all so it could import millions of future voters.
Trump came back to the Oval Office with the odds stacked against him. Yet his leadership is meeting the moment. Law enforcement is finally getting back to work. The president has ended “catch-and-release.” He has reinstituted other protocols and delivered the most secure border in American history.
Still, right now, there are tens of millions of illegal immigrants in this country, DHS has finite resources, and we are more than $36 trillion in debt. This incentive to self-deport is one of many solutions that we need to use to fulfill Trump’s deportation mandate.
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill insightfully remarked that “it is at once the safeguard and the glory of mankind that they are easy to lead and hard to drive.” In tough situations, especially involving large numbers of people, creating incentives for compliance is often far more efficient and effective than using force.
There will, of course, be illegal immigrants who ignore the incentive and try to stay. It’s far less expensive to have U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement focus on those obstinate lawbreakers while the rest take the more orderly option at 30% of the cost to the nation.
DHS CELEBRATES ‘NEW ERA OF LAW AND ORDER’ IN NOD TO POLICE WEEK
Trump has been shaking up Washington for a decade because he routinely thinks outside the box to fix problems. We have a massive challenge ahead of us to restore law and order to our immigration system. Now is the time for outside-the-box thinking.
The people voted for mass deportations. Trump is delivering.
Brandon Gill represents Texas’s 26th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.