Oct. 3 (UPI) — The Trump administration will pay $2,500 to some unaccompanied migrant children ages 14 to 17 years old to self-deport from the United States to their home countries.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday confirmed to Politico and The Washington Post that the agency, along with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugees and Resettlement, are offering the “strictly voluntary” program.
It is called the “Family Assistance Reintegration,” and money will be given after an immigration judge grants their request. Those first offered will be 17-year-olds.
DHS is touting the plan as a way to help children return to their families.
“Many of these had no choice when they were dangerously smuggled into this country,” DHS posted on X. “ICE and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement at HHS are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families.”
The payment will be offered to those who came to the U.S. by themself. They are in detention centers or placed with sponsor relatives or foster families.
Shelters were asked on Friday to notify the teens.
They will receive the payment in exchange for waiving their rights to pursue immigration relief as part of a law that protects victims of human trafficking and smuggling.
Under federal law, they can apply for protection, including asylum or a special visa for neglected or abandoned children. Those proceedings can take several years.
Immigration advocates and lawyers dispute calling the new program voluntary because some children may be scared into self-deporting.
An official with the American Immigration Council said U.S. authorities could threaten to arrest the person’s family with trafficking their children or threaten them with deportation once they turn 18.
“Those financial incentives have often been coercive, and they’ve often been presented as the only way for people to avoid punitive and terrorizing consequences even if they have legitimate claims to legal status in the United States,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council advocacy group in Washington, told Politico. “Does failure to take the money and return to a place you fled mean that you will be detained once you age out of the unaccompanied minors status?”
“Safe voluntary departure requires legal counsel — not government marketing or what amounts to cash bribes for kids,” Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law told The Washington Post. “This administration’s actions again prove it cannot be trusted to protect children.”
The new program is being called Freaky Friday by opponents.
An ICE spokesperson told Politico that critics are trying to “instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement.”
When Joe Biden was president, tens of thousands of unaccompanied children reached the United States, at times with the help of smugglers.
The Biden and Trump administrations have attempted to reduce the number of children in the custody of the HHS. The number in custody since Trump became president is lower with 2,000 minors in shelters in August.
When Trump was first president, more than 4,000 migrant children were separated from their parents after they crossed the border illegally.