The U.S. government plans to pay $2,500 to unaccompanied migrant children who voluntarily deport themselves from the country, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a memo to attorneys representing noncitizen minors.
The policy affects undocumented immigrant children in the custody of the department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, NBC News reported.
The notice said the government already has heard from children in ORR custody who are interested in applying for “voluntary departure,” according to the report. Officials explained the “the benefit” as a way “to support reintegration efforts following departures.”
News of the policy surfaced Oct. 2 through social media posts by immigrant advocates contacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the offer. Immigration officials denied claims the plan was called “Freaky Friday,” possibly in reference to the 2003 film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.
“ICE said the name was a made-up ‘ridiculous term’ but conceded the agency was offering money to unaccompanied minor children to self-deport,” NBC News reported.
An ICE spokeswoman said the program is “strictly voluntary” and offered as an “option to return home to their families.”
But immigration advocates said deported minors are likely to face grave dangers upon return to their home countries.
Christine Lemonda
“This move exploits the trust of already vulnerable children escaping violence and persecution, placing them at further risk of trafficking and other forms of abuse,” said Christine Lemonda, senior director of children’s services at Church World Service.
“This new tactic, that comes on the heels of the administration’s attempts to deport approximately 75 children from Guatemala … is yet another attempt in the administration’s immigrant enforcement scheme. The effects of this could take away due process for unaccompanied children.”
Children likely will fail to understand the complexities of the immigration legal system or comprehend the ramifications of being thrust back into societies they had previously escaped, Lemonda said. “Children will face danger and harm to their mental and physical well-being because of this, and we owe it to them to do better. Children should be properly cared for and have their due process rights protected — not undermined.”
Paying immigrant children to leave the U.S. is among the latest tactics in a mass deportation campaign designed to protect American citizens “from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes,” President Donald Trump said in his Jan. 20 executive order on immigration.
In February, the administration eliminated funding for immigrant legal services, including programs that provided attorneys, interpreters and guardians for children undergoing immigration court proceedings. The government still has not complied with court orders to provide that funding.
In June, the White House said it planned to start deporting abused and neglected children even if they have been granted legal status to remain in the U.S.
And in September, a federal judge temporarily barred the administration from swiftly deporting hundreds of Guatemalan children after lying in court that parents had requested their return. Authorities initially planned to quietly whisk the children from their caregivers over the Labor Day weekend.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. protesting the plan to pay unaccompanied minors to self-deport. The Oct. 10 communication also expressed concern about a directive requiring the transfer of children to adult detention facilities upon turning 18.
“Offering financial inducements to children, many of whom are fleeing violence, trafficking or persecution, undermines these protections and risks coercing minors into abandoning legitimate legal claims,” the caucus said. “Coercing children into forfeiting their rights is not immigration enforcement. It is state-sanctioned exploitation.”
Using taxpayer dollars to finance the scheme also represents “a profound abuse of power,” the Hispanic legislators said. “It erodes public confidence in the integrity of the immigration system and contradicts the values of fairness and decency that define our nation.”