Jim Hartman
While deportations have increased from levels seen during the administration of President Biden, they are nowhere close to the pace needed to meet President Trump’s internal goal of 1 million a year.
Trump is frustrated by the fact Biden easily permitted 11 million people to enter the country illegally, with nothing more than a notice to appear and a bus ticket to their preferred destination. Meanwhile, there is a resource-heavy, time-consuming process to remove 1 million illegal immigrants.
This disparity in due process – none of it coming in, a burdensome amount of it going out – inherently favors illegal immigration.
Only self-deportation can achieve Trump’s goal.
The push to increase the number of illegal immigrants who self-deported was the brainchild of former U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, who advocated the idea of encouraging voluntary departures during his 2012 presidential campaign.
When asked during a Republican primary debate in 2012 about how the U.S. could deport the millions of illegal immigrants in the country, Romney said, “the answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.”
Romney’s idea was largely mocked during that campaign, including by Trump who called it “maniacal” and “crazy.”
Fast-forward to 2025, and self-deportation has become a central theme in Trump’s efforts to speed the overall number of removals.
In an Oval Office video message in March, Trump encouraged illegal immigrants to use the CBP Home app to voluntarily leave the country.
“Leave now and self-deport voluntarily. If they do, they could potentially have the opportunity to return legally at some point in the future,” Trump said in the video, adding that those who do not self-deport “will be found, they will be deported, and they will never be admitted again to the United States.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has put her focus on immigration messaging.
The department has allocated $200 million to an ad campaign featuring Noem warning immigrants in the country illegally – in English – to “leave now.”
DHS will now front the cost of commercial flights, allow them to keep money earned, and provide a $1,000 stipend to illegal aliens who opt to self-deport from the U.S. It’s a move DHS says will be 70% cheaper than the cost to arrest, detain and deport someone.
The way to effect deportations without due process is not to invoke the legally dubious Alien Enemies Act’s wartime powers, or make other doubtful legal claims, ultimately leading potentially to defying the Supreme Court.
Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation would deport only several thousand gangbanger members of Tren de Aragua and MS-13. His order likely applies to less than 0.1 percent of the entire population of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Rather, the way to get them out without due process is the same way they came in – by their own choice.
The only way to achieve mass departures is to target the jobs magnet in the U.S.
The vast majority of illegal immigrants aren’t gang members here to commit crimes or victims fleeing political persecution. They are people coming here to work.
Real change would require mandating an E-Verify system that forces businesses to validate the legal status of a new employee by confirming their Social Security number with the Social Security Administration.
The current practice is that employers fill out a Form I-9 documenting an alien’s authorization to work in the U.S. However, employers simply file these forms away, and the government rarely asks to see them.
To date, Trump shows little interest in mandating E-Verify on employers, thereby surrendering the principal means to achieve extensive departures without due process. He seems reluctant to carry out worksite raids at a scale that could greatly increase the number of self-deportations.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.