OPINION: Self-deportations offer peace of mind and self-determination

One year at Purdue following an internship at the Indiana Statehouse, I found myself in a roommate lottery for an off-campus apartment.

Those of us chosen for a four-bedroom apartment were an eclectic bunch for sure — myself, a tennis preppy, a heavy metal music enthusiast, and Mohammad, who was attending Purdue on a student visa.

I’ll never forget the night I met Mohammad in the fall of 1991. His Arabic accent was heavy, so I asked where he was from and he replied Palestine.

“Oh, that’s part of Israel, isn’t it?” I asked naively.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he responded. “Sit down, sit down, sit down.”

And thus began my yearlong education into all things Arabic and Islamic.

Long story short, Mohammad graduated a couple years later with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, usually a surefire path to employment success at some engineering firm. But Mohammad had overstayed his student visa and was thus relegated to the underground employment market post-graduation, working long days and nights at a liquor store on the south side of Chicago, getting paid in cash and eking by to pay the rent of his small Chicago apartment.

A couple years later, Mohammad, who is as fine and decent a man I have ever known, got married to woman from Chicago, obtained legal residency status, got a good job at an engineering firm, and started a family.

I could go several directions with this column at this point; the war in Gaza, freedom of speech on college campuses, or foreign student anxiety. But the issue of the week is self-deportation.

For several weeks, I’ve been advocating for a federal self-deportation program that would give those in the country illegally a path forward and some peace of mind. No one should live in daily fear in being scooped up at any minute, separated from family members, and detained by ICE.

But after decades of rampant abuses of our immigration system, the American people have had it, and the November presidential election and subsequent polling show it. A poll released in January by Axios/Ipsos, for example, found two-thirds of Americans surveyed support deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.

The political winds have shifted dramatically in the Trump era. Americans aren’t repeating stale calls from Democrats for “comprehensive immigration reform.” They instead want “comprehensive immigration enforcement,” which means a mass deportation program is necessary.

The days of illegal immigrants — whom the media and Democrats continue to erroneously and euphemistically term as “undocumented” — living in the shadows are over, at least for a few years. But deporting 10 million to 20 million people isn’t realistic, feasible or affordable.

The idea to implement a self-deportation program that gives illegal immigrants time to get their affairs in order, determine their own destiny, stay together as families and possibly come back to the United States legally at some point is the best idea of the Trump administration so far. The Trump administration’s announcement Monday (May 5) that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would fund self-deportation airline flights and provide self-deporting migrants a $1,000 stipend upon their return to their home countries are good incentives to do the right thing.

Some immigration hardliners may feel taxpayers shouldn’t fund and encourage illegal immigration any more than we already have. But the DHS program using the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home app is actually cost-effective. DHS officials say arresting, detaining and deporting a migrant costs $17,121 on average. DHS says the use of CBP Home app, even with thousand-dollar stipends, is expected to decrease deportation costs by around 70%.

“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a statement on Monday.

DHS also says participation in the self-deportation program “may help preserve the option for an illegal alien to re-enter the United States legally in the future.” On the other hand, those who don’t self-deport face a possible 20-year ban on re-entry if deported by immigration officials. I, for one, hope those who opt for self-deportation go to the front of the line for re-entry. Those in the country illegally know they’ve done something wrong — that’s why they live in the shadows. Owning up to it and voluntarily leaving the country should bode well for them in the future.

Albuquerque officials estimate the city has about 20,000 immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization. The American Immigration Council estimates there are 53,200 “undocumented immigrants” in New Mexico, making up about 2.5% of the state’s population.

New Mexico Democrats would do the immigrant population well encouraging them to go through proper channels and self-deport if in the country illegally. But of course they won’t. Illegal immigrants are at the heart of Democratic constituencies. Democrats would rather illegal aliens dangle in the wind and live day-to-day in fear of deportation than cooperate with any Trump administration immigration policy.

On the other hand, the Trump administration says those who sign up for self-deportation will be deprioritized for arrest and detention, “as long as they demonstrate they are making meaningful strides in completing that departure.” That alone could give 53,000 New Mexicans some much-needed peace of mind in the short term.

With so much at stake, every immigrant family in New Mexico must do what is best for them, not what is best for the Democratic Party of New Mexico. No member of our all-Democrat congressional delegation faces possible detention and deportation, just those they mislead into feeling a false sense of security.

With his circle of friends from Yemen and all over the Middle East, Mohammad would likely be at the top of deportation list today with an expired student visa. And he’d probably be among the first to sign up for self-deportation so that he could get back to America legally as soon as possible.