Trump turns to self-deportation push as mass raids falter

By Alicia A. Caldwell

The message is blunt, flashing on TV screens, streaming platforms and social media feeds across the country: Leave now, or we will find you.

Faced with the logistical and financial limits of mass deportations, the Trump administration has turned to a $200 million media campaign aimed at persuading undocumented immigrants to leave the US voluntarily.

Branded “Stay Out and Leave Now,” the effort combines the ad blitz with a self-reporting departure app launched this week, and warnings from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that those who don’t leave will be caught and permanently barred from returning.

“Leave now. If you don’t, we will find you and we will deport you. You will never return,” Noem warns in a domestic ad. In an international version, she tells would-be migrants not to “even think about it. Let me be clear, if you come to our country and break our laws, we will hunt you down.”

The Trump administration’s promised mass arrest and deportation effort got off to a swift and costly start after his inauguration in January, with high-profile raids across the country and multiple deportation flights — some on military aircraft — to Central and South America and India. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has recorded roughly 33,000 arrests since then. But the pace has slowed, leading to multiple leadership shakeups at the agency. Trump is now urging Congress to approve more funding to carry out the crackdown.

The push comes as unauthorized crossings at the southern border continue to decline, with thousands more troops deployed as part of a military buildup. In February, Border Patrol agents recorded just 8,300 illegal crossings, the lowest monthly total in decades. That trend began last summer when then-President Joe Biden imposed tighter restrictions on asylum eligibility, and Mexico ramped up efforts to interdict migrants.

Trump celebrated the decline in border encounters in a Thursday post entitled “Making America Safe Again” on Truth Social.

So far, DHS has spent nearly $2.4 million running the ads in various US markets, including metro areas such as New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Arizona and Los Angeles, as well as more rural places like the Texas border region, according to data from ad-tracking firm AdImpact. The spots, running in multiple languages, feature dramatic montages of immigration arrests, mugshots of migrants accused of crimes, and footage of President Donald Trump standing at the border.

This week, the Trump administration also announced the launch of the CBP Home app, an overhaul of the CBP One app, which had been used by the Biden administration to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants to make appointments to request entry at a legal border crossing. Trump shut down CBP One app hours after being sworn in, canceling all pending appointments and closing a key pathway for asylum seekers.

“The CPB Home strengthens our mission to secure the border and provides illegal aliens with a straightforward way to leave now before facing much harsher consequences later,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing on Wednesday.

The administration already announced mandatory registration for most foreigners aged 14 and older who are in the county for more than 30 days. Visa holders and legal residents are largely exempt, but undocumented immigrants — and even some Canadians — are subject to the rule.

“The idea of self-deportation has been around for a very long time,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “But the problem with that strategy has always been that in order to drive people back to really horrible places things have to be really horrible here.”

Unlike formal deportations, self-removals are difficult to track. While ICE documents those transported on deportation flights, no reliable system exists for counting those who leave through land borders of their own accord. Johnson said immigrants should be wary of the registration effort and the CBP Home app.

“With the registration initiative, of course you would get apprehended, even if you said my intention is to self-deport,” Johnson said. “They are going to want you to be in their deportation numbers.”

DHS said in a statement that telling the government about plans to leave will be “safer, but it also saves US taxpayer dollars and valuable Customs and Border Protection and ICE resources.”

“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Noem said in a statement this week. “If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”