Last week, the DHS announced a new program that would provide $1000 to any illegal migrant who self-deports. The department said the program, which would include commercial airfare along with the stipend, would save the taxpayers thousands on each illegal removed. Officials said the deal would cost around $4,500 on average, whereas it currently costs DHS more than $17,000 to arrest, detain, and deport someone. The thousand-dollar stipend would be paid only after the individual had left the country.
Fox News spoke to various Republican lawmakers about their responses, which ran from enthusiastic support to grudging acquiescence. None opposed the plan outright.
Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, said, “It’s a smart, compassionate, and cost-effective way to tackle immigration issues. Instead of costly detentions and deportations, this plan offers financial help and safe travel for people to return home. It’s a win-win, fair to those involved and saves American taxpayers millions.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said the program “will help get the [deportation] numbers up” but that probably it would be accepted mostly by persons who wanted to leave anyway. “We’re not gonna lose any gangbangers like that or any criminals,” he said.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said: “I don’t love it, but I also don’t love the situation we’re in. I think it is pathetic that we’re in a position where we have to pay for people and pay for their flights and remove them and then give them money.”
Roy is right. It is pathetic situation, but wholesale removal of millions is not an easy task, nor will it be an inexpensive one. If the same result can be accomplished more cheaply — and IF we can provide safeguards to ensure that it can’t be used fraudulently by recidivist border-jumpers — then it’s another arrow in the DHS’s quiver of migrant-removal weapons.
For more, see Fox News.