National
Trump administration says it’ll pay immigrants in the US illegally $1,000 to leave the country

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration says it is going to pay immigrants in the United States illegally who’ve returned to their home country voluntarily $1,000 as it pushes forward with its mass deportation agenda.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release Monday that it’s also paying for travel assistance and that those people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government that they plan to return home will be “deprioritized” for detention and removal by immigration enforcement.
“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,” Secretary Kristi Noem said.
President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally a centerpiece of his campaign, but that is a costly, resource-intensive endeavor.
While the Republican administration is pushing Congress for a massive increase in resources for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department responsible for removing people from the country, it’s also pushing people in the country illegally to “self-deport.”

Bob N.
May 5, 2025 at 3:41 pm
3 years ago, when then-Mayor Reynolds put the vagrants in Houska Park, I thought of a similar idea for them. Numbering only about 125 vagrants at the time, One thousand dollars each for a one-way bus ticket to Los Angeles including script for McDonald’s stops along the way. Prior to the trip each signed a waiver, releasing La Crosse from any responsibility. (California had just passed a 2 billion dollar welfare program for homeless people.)
Cost: $125,000.00 –less than the costs turned out to be to repair the damage caused by the homeless to Houska Park and no lingering costs to the La Crosse County Human Services Department which are now being paid out regularly now through the “Pathways Home” project. It wasn’t such a wild idea.