President Trump Hints At Future Self-Deportation Program
on Apr 16, 2025
Initiative Could Help Illegal Migrants Return Legally
In a Fox Noticias interview, broadcast on Tuesday, April 15, President Donald Trump revealed his intentions to facilitate incentives for illegal migrants to self-deport.
While the implementation of the plan has not been laid out yet, Trump shared with Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy what can be expected.
“What we want to do is, we’re going to have a self-deportation program, which we haven’t even announced yet,” Trump began, noting its specifics have not yet been determined.
Expounding upon this, Trump said:
“We’re going to give them a stipend. We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them — if they’re good. If we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”
Prior to this statement, Trump clarified, “We want our great people to stay.”
Securing The Border
Since taking office for his second term as president on January 20, Trump has been working to fulfill many of his campaign promises.
Many of these measures were taken within his first hours as the 47th president.
Among those first executive orders and proclamations was a declaration of a national emergency at the nation’s southern border, which described the influx of illegal immigration as an “invasion.”
A separate executive order stated that “a nation without borders is not a nation,” and added that the United States government has “limited information on the precise whereabouts of a great number of these illegal aliens who have entered the United States over the last 4 years.”
Authorizing the “United States to take all appropriate action” to address illegal immigration, this order cites the detention and removal of illegal aliens as a path toward securing the border.
On March 19, Trump shared a graphic to Truth Social featuring figures from the United States Department of Homeland Security regarding law enforcement encounters at the border with illegal aliens.
From February 2024, under then-President Joe Biden, to February 2025, the department reported a decrease in encounters by 94%.
The “Gold Card”
The timeline for the rollout of the self-deportation program remains unknown, but it follows in the shadow of the announcement of the “gold card.”
On February 25, Trump shared details from the Oval Office on a program directed at the nation’s employers. For $5 million, an individual or corporation may purchase permanent residency in the United States.
The sale of “gold cards” has been mentioned by Trump as a solution for paying off the country’s debt.
On a March 20 podcast appearance, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said at least 1,000 gold cards had already been sold, bringing in $5 billion.
The “gold card” website is presently being developed by Elon Musk’s DOGE team, and the cards are expected to formally hit the market in the coming month.
