The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly offering unaccompanied minors $2,500 if they voluntarily leave the U.S. and return to their home countries, according to multiple reports.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informed migrant shelters that teenagers 14 years or older could self-deport and claim the financial incentive if they respond to the offer within 24 hours, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press (AP). The Trump administration had already planned to offer incentives for illegal migrants to self-deport, including a $1,000 stipend and flight assistance.
“ICE and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement at HHS are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families. This voluntary option gives UACs [unaccompanied alien children] a choice and allows them to make an informed decision about their future,” an ICE spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Ex-Biden Admin Official In Charge Of Unaccompanied Children Says She Doesn’t Believe In Deportation)
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds up a sign encouraging undocumented migrants to “self-deport” during a roundtable discussion as she visits a migrant detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on July 1, 2025. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
ICE told the DCNF that the offer would initially be for 17-year-olds, though it did not confirm the details of the incentives. The email to shelters did not indicate there would be consequences for minors who didn’t accept the offer, according to the AP. There were over 2,000 migrant children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services as of Oct. 2, according to agency data.“Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin. Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option,” ICE told the DCNF in a statement. “Cartels trafficked countless unaccompanied children into the United States during the Biden Administration, and DHS and HHS have been working diligently to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those children. … Many of these UACs had no choice when they were dangerously smuggled into this country.”
The ICE spokesperson also noted that “anti-ICE activists have made up a ridiculous term, ‘Freaky Friday,’ to instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement” and told the DNCF the “allegations” that ICE is are “categorically false.”
President Donald Trump campaigned on cracking down on illegal migration. DHS subsequently announced that over two million illegal migrants have self-deported or “been removed” from the U.S. in the first 250 days of Trump’s second term.
Notably, the agency also said the ongoing federal government shutdown will not impede its large-scale deportation efforts.“Despite a lapse in funding, ICE will continue to remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens including rapists, pedophiles, murderers, gang members and terrorists from our country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement previously obtained by the DCNF. “Thanks to the Trump Administration’s signature piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill, we will continue to hire, train, and deploy law enforcement across the country to make America safe again.”
