The U.S. government plans to deploy immigration agents to the southern border to detain people without legal status who are trying to go to Mexico voluntarily for Christmas and New Year’s, U.S. media reported Wednesday.
The operation will include inspections by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Protection (CBP) agents, including on commercial buses, according to The Huffington Post.
Plan to detain migrants who voluntarily leave through the southern border
The media outlet cites an internal memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has not been made public, detailing that this operation will target differently those with and those without criminal records.
The former will be “processed according to their current immigration cases,” suggesting that they could be placed in detention and referred through formal deportation proceedings.
Through a spokesperson, DHS told EFE that it does not comment on future operations.
“It is common sense that we should know who is entering and who is leaving our country,” the spokesman added.
“Under Trump (…) DHS has secured our borders and ports to ensure that no undocumented immigrants enter or leave the U.S. without proper inspection,” he said.
The Trump administration has been promoting what it calls “self-deportation” or voluntary departure for migrants who do not have legal status in the country.
Through a mobile app, called CBP Home, the Republican Administration promises migrants a $1,000 payment.
“If you don’t self-deport, it’s not a question of if ICE is going to find you or not, but when,” DHS notes in a document on its website about this process.
The government has not released official data on how many people have applied for this assistance, but The Atlantic magazine revealed that only about 35,000 migrants have so far used the CBP Home application.
Trump rose to power by promising to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history.
However, in his first year in office he has removed 600,000 people, according to official data, below the 685,000 deportations seen in fiscal year 2024 under his successor, Joe Biden.
Filed under: Migrants who leave voluntarily could be detained
With information from EFE
