The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has tripled the financial incentive offered to undocumented migrants who voluntarily leave the United States, raising the so-called “exit bonus” from $1,000 to $3,000 under its self-deportation program.
Under President Donald Trump’s stricter immigration enforcement, the department has been offering $1,000 and free travel to persuade people without legal authority who remain in the United States to leave.
Migrants who register with the U.S. government and depart the country by the end of the calendar year will qualify for the payment.
DHS says eligible participants who leave by Dec. 31, 2025, will also receive free airfare to their home countries and have certain civil fines or penalties related to unlawful presence waived, provided they use the rebranded CBP Home app to self-deport.
The advantage to the government is avoiding the average cost of $17,121 to arrest, detain and remove immigrants, officials have said.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said U.S. taxpayers are “generously” tripling the exit bonus through Dec. 31.
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“Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return,” Noem said in a statement.
Those who are deported are barred from ever returning. But by leaving voluntarily, undocumented immigrants could potentially return to the United States eventually through legal channels.
The department invites undocumented immigrants to use Customs and Border Protection’s CBP Home app to process their self-deportations.
The CBP Home smartphone application, modeled after the Biden administration’s CBP One platform, is now being used under the Trump administration to facilitate voluntary departures.
Migrants are instructed to signal their intent to leave through the app. DHS officials say that once eligibility is confirmed, participants will receive travel assistance and the $3,000 stipend after the government verifies they have exited the U.S.
Originally created to schedule asylum appointments, the CBP One app has been overhauled as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. It now operates within a voluntary departure framework, allowing migrants without lawful status to report and track their exit from the country.
DHS says the increased stipend is part of a holiday-season campaign designed to speed up removals while reducing costs to taxpayers. According to the agency, providing travel assistance is typically far cheaper than traditional enforcement methods. As of May 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimated that the average cost to arrest, detain and remove an undocumented migrant stands at about $17,000.
As part of the self-deportation initiative, DHS says participants are deprioritized for ICE arrest and detention as long as they show “meaningful strides” toward leaving the U.S. However, officials have not released detailed guidance on how long that protection lasts or how compliance is measured.
While ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrests remain the most visible elements of the administration’s immigration crackdown, President Trump has also pushed policies aimed at encouraging families and unaccompanied children who entered the country without authorization to self-deport.
An estimated 1.9 million undocumented immigrants have left the country this year, according to DHS officials, although the figure is difficult to corroborate because of people leaving voluntarily. Tens of thousands have used the CBP Home app, officials said.
The right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies estimated a decline of 2.2 million foreign-born people during the first six months of the year, based on projections in the Current Population Survey of the U.S. Census. The figure represents the largest drop in one year in decades.