US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday night creating the first such program in US history that encourages illegal immigrants to “self-deport.”
The program, revealed earlier this week by the US administration, also provides $1,000 and a round-trip airfare to illegal immigrants who will voluntarily return to their homeland.
“Any criminal alien is able to just appear at an airport and take a free trip out of our nation,” Trump remarked in a video uploaded to the Truth Social network.
Illegal aliens can “purchasing a plane ticket to any nation,” he continued, saying, “they can go wherever they want.”
Revealing the program on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated the stipend and possible airfare would cost 70 percent less than deportation.
It costs the national treasury approximately $17,000 to arrest, jail and deport an illegal immigrant, said the US official.
“This deportation bonus will save American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars,” said President Trump.
He cautioned illegal aliens who disregard the offer that they stand to risk “heavy prison sentences, huge financial fines, seizure of all their assets, confiscation of all their wages, and instant deportation to a location and in a fashion we choose.”
Self-deportation, the US president said, keeps the door open for a potential legal re-entry into the United States.