Most Americans are descendants of people who, at some point in the nation’s history, have been told: “Go back to where you came from!” Whether Irish or Arab, German or Mexican, East Asian or even Native American, few groups have been spared the insult.
The dark insult rooted in Trump’s pay-to-go-away immigrant stipend
Paying immigrants to self-deport shows the president is running the country like a cutthroat business.
May 9, 2025 The Washington Post
That can result in intolerant policy. The latest evidence is a White House proposal offering undocumented immigrants $1,000 and a plane ticket if they voluntarily leave the country. A Department of Homeland Security news release describes the program as a historic opportunity that reduces the chances of detention and forcible removal, stating, “Self-deportation is a dignified way to leave the U.S.” Secretary Kristi L. Noem’s sales pitch adds that “the safest and most cost-effective way” to avoid being arrested is to use the Customs and Border Protection’s smartphone application to notify government of your departure plans. More from Noem’s plea: “Download the CBP Home App TODAY and self-deport.”
The approach isn’t novel; other nations pay immigrants to leave. France has offered payments upward of $8,000, travel aid and in-kind reintegration assistance. Germany provides transportation, lump-sum payments and medical assistance. Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom have similar programs.
But for a place that has proudly proclaimed to be a “nation of immigrants” and home to the American Dream, the country’s pay-to-go-away policy is particularly hypocritical. In the United States, today’s nativists always arise from yesterday’s immigrants. For them to tell other arrivals to go back home is evidence that they’ve forgotten where they come from. Paying undocumented immigrants to leave only cheapens things.
But the Trump administration insists on operating the country more like a cutthroat business than a constitutional democracy. Through this lens, offering paltry buyouts to people hoping to become Americans — and measuring success in dollars saved — is framed as compassionate and efficient policy. But it mostly amounts to bad severance packages for dreamers, or predatory contracts branded as smart governance and sound business acumen. It also capitalizes on the fear and uncertainty that results from the deportations of citizens and legal residents. It makes people an offer they can’t refuse, but with concierge service: Go back to Africa! Can we help you with your bags?
Some things, however, aren’t for sale. Some people, even those with few resources or rights, cannot be bought off. For some, there is no bribe that beats a shot at safety and opportunity for themselves and their families. These are truths that people who’ve experienced government at its worst know all too well. And anyone who has witnessed new Americans take the oath of allegiance at a naturalization ceremony knows the extraordinary drive they have to call the United States home.
If there’s anything more insulting than being told to go back where you came from, it’s the idea that people — even undocumented ones — will sell away their chance at a better life. How much is your place in America worth to you?
Over a decade ago, the Republican plan for self-deportation was to create a pathway to citizenship and ensure that all undocumented people who don’t take the proper steps are unemployable. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, remarked at a debate, “If people don’t get work here, they’re going to self-deport to a place where they can get work.” In other words, take away opportunities, and people will leave on their own. Today, the policy attempts to sweeten the deal with a stipend but leaves in place a broken immigration system and adds in threats of state violence. It’s more likely that the people who choose to leave of their own volition are the very ones the United States should most want to stay and become citizens.
Whatever the economic case may be for self-deportation stipends, the policy discounts the pull that life in the United States has held for generations of arrivals. And it misunderstands why people of all kinds choose to stay here, even when given the chance — or a federally sponsored incentive — to leave the country and start anew elsewhere. No matter where we once were, being American means we come from here now; this is home. And there’s no going back — not even for a one-way ticket and a thousand bucks.