Trump’s Promise to Pay Undocumented Immigrants to Leave Is a Trap

Donald Trump’s administration is trying to trick immigrants into self-deporting by offering them $1,000—but it’s just another scam.  

The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that any undocumented immigrant who uses the CBP Home app to self-deport would “receive a stipend of $1,000, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.” 

DHS attempted to paint self-deportation as a “dignified” way to avoid being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and claimed that it “may help preserve the option for an illegal alien to re-enter the United States legally in the future.”

But Aaron Reichlin-Melchick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wasn’t the least bit convinced by the government’s claim that those who self-deport would ever be welcomed back to the U.S. 

He wrote in a post on X Monday that the government’s offer was an “outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court.” Having a deportation order would make it harder to return, and the DHS’s offer would “sabotage” immigration cases, he added. 

Reichlin-Melchick also wrote that there was reason to doubt that DHS even had the authority to offer financial assistance to immigrants who chose to self-deport. “No law directly authorizes DHS to pay plane tickets and offer reimbursements to people leaving the country,” he noted. 

The only legal authority that allowed for the government to deport immigrants “desirous of being so removed” also included a “near-total ban on reentry,” Reichlin-Melchick wrote in another post.

“Any alien so removed shall be ineligible to apply for or receive a visa or other documentation for readmission, or to apply for admission to the United States except with the prior approval of the Attorney General,” states U.S. Code Title 8 Section 1260. 

In recent weeks, in an effort to encourage self-deportation, DHS has sent notices telling undocumented immigrants that their parole status has been revoked—but reporters discovered that some of these emails wound up in the inboxes of immigration attorneys, forcing DHS to acknowledge its sloppy mistake. 

Donald Trump continues to insist that America’s children deserve less.

“I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls,” the president said when asked about the prices of goods rising due to his unprecedented tariffs on Chinese imports. “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

“A young lady, a 10-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he continued. “She can be very happy with three or four or five.… Let’s not waste a lot of time on a stupid question.”

The president said something similarly tone deaf less than a week ago.

“[China] made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion and one with Biden, selling us stuff,” Trump said, referring to the gargantuan Chinese import market in the United States. “Much of it, we don’t need. Ya know, somebody said, ‘Oh the shelves are gonna be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

This is all part of a tariff normalization campaign from the Trump administration, as they dismiss the legitimate fears that ordinary people have about costs for common goods rising. These asinine comments about pencils and dolls are well beside the point.

The former leader of the Proud Boys claimed that he spoke with Donald Trump on Saturday night, and that the president “loves” him.

Enrique Tarrio, the convicted ex-chief of the far-right hate group, was one of the nearly 1,600 people who received clemency from the president for his actions on January 6, mere hours into Trump’s second term. But that was apparently not the last time that Tarrio would interact with the president. Instead, Tarrio and his mother, Zuny Duarte, were ushered to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where a member had personally invited them to dine, reported The New York Times.

“He called me and my Mother over while we were at dinner and said he was sorry for what Joe Biden did to all J6ers,” Tarrio posted on X. “He knew the hardships me and my family faced for [three] long years.”

“He knew how many times they moved me. And he said he is working on making things right. I thanked him for giving me my life back,” Tarrio continued. “He replied with … I Love You guys.”

“To the J6ers he wanted me to send y’all a message,” Tarrio wrote. “He said … Thank you.”

Tarrio’s presence at Mar-a-Lago was made all the more strange considering that he would have had to be personally screened by the Secret Service before entering the Florida resort.

By Monday, Trump had not denied the exchange, and a White House spokesman contacted by the Times did not respond.

Tarrio was one of four Proud Boys to be convicted of seditious conspiracy for his actions on January 6. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison—the longest sentence received by any Proud Boys member—for effectively planning the attack on the Capitol to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss. Tarrio served less than two years before Trump’s pen set him free. Since then, Tarrio has sparked a podcast and a Proud Boys–oriented crypto coin, and has become a far-right social media influencer.

In an interview with Alex Jones in January, Tarrio promised “retribution” against people who worked on prosecuting January 6 cases.

Donald Trump blew his top on Sunday night after being skewered by prominent Republican political strategist Karl Rove on Fox News.

During an appearance on Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy, the former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush slammed Trump on several areas, including the president’s recent admission that as a result of his tariffs “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

“He sounds like Mr. Scrooge, and the ordinary American is like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you were on my side, I didn’t think you were on the side of saying I need to do with less! You got plenty of money, I gotta make mine stretch as far as I can,” Rove said.

Trump didn’t take kindly to Rove’s feedback.

“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do. The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

It’s been almost a month since the president announced a 90-day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs (while an across-the-board 10 percent tariff remains in effect), and he has yet to announce a single deal. Last week, Trump claimed he’d struck 200 trade deals, but there aren’t even 200 countries in the world.

Rove didn’t just criticize Trump‘s “really problematic” defense of his tariffs. He also criticized Trump for posting a “deeply offensive” AI-generated picture of himself wearing papal clothes and sitting on a throne, and for his attacks on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has claimed without evidence that Abrego Garcia was “one of the top MS-13 members.”

“The fact is, is bring him back to the United States, lay out the facts in a court of law, and get it done,” Rove said. “It does no good to let that then go out there for four or five weeks, and eat away at the president’s approval on immigration.”

Rove also hit Trump for outright lying about inflation, and the price of gas, adding, “And there’s a lot of concern about the economy. The President’s ratings on the economy and tariffs are in the 30s. And his overall approval is in the mid to low 40s. That’s not a good place to be a 100 days in.”

New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler had yet another chaotic town hall on Sunday, in which multiple disgruntled constituents of his were forcibly removed by private security and a state trooper.

As his constituents grilled him with questions, and often loudly booed his answers, Lawler remained steadfast in his loyalty to the Trump administration and its destructive positions on tariffs, bureaucracy, Ukraine, and more.

“The courts have given the president the authority on tariffs,” Lawler said. He was met with groans and jeers, and even one “blah, blah, blah.” But he continued as security removed people from the crowd. “Well, if people would behave then there wouldn’t be a problem,’ said Lawler, which led to even more, louder boos from his constituents. “If they do not reach agreements within the next 30 to 45 days, then Congress will have to intervene—”

The crowd drowned Lawler out while more officers rushed to take a woman away by her ankles. An elderly constituent was given the same treatment. She flashed double peace signs as she was manhandled by security, as seen in a viral photo taken by Seth Harrison of The Journal News. The Associated Press reported that at least two more constituents were also removed from the town hall.

Lawler, who represents a swing district, is one of the few Republicans to keep holding town halls. Late last month, he had a similarly hostile town hall experience, where he lied about cuts to Medicaid as his constituents called him an authoritarian.

This story has been updated.