President Donald Trump’s administration is spending $200 million on an ad campaign to encourage migrants to deport themselves - even as the federal budget is being hacked to shreds.
The Department of Homeland Security launched a new app earlier this week where migrants can declare they have deported themselves so that one day they can return to the U.S. legally.
“This self-deportation functionality is part of a larger $200 million domestic and international ad campaign encouraging illegal aliens to ‘Stay Out and Leave Now,’ the department said in a news release.
The Department of Homeland Security’s big-budget ad campaign seeks to rebrand the CBP One app that was used by migrants under the Biden administration and will run “ on radio, broadcast and digital, in multiple countries and regions in various dialects,” the department said. “Ads will be hyper-targeted, including through social media, text message and digital to reach illegal immigrants in the interior of the United States, as well as internationally.”
It features Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cut with shots of the president. “If you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American Dream,” Noem says in the ad.
The costly ad’s release comes as the department fired more than 400 federal staffers in the last month under the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically reduce the workforce.
Hundreds of employees who worked in “non-mission critical personnel in probationary status” at the department’s agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, were let go in February.
“Unfortunately, the Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the Agency's current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the Agency,” a letter sent to an employee said, according to CBS News.
Elsewhere, thousands of federal employees have lost their jobs since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began its cost-cutting frenzy.
The CBP One app allowed migrants to make appointments at a port of entry to seek asylum under the Biden administration.
The function was swiftly revoked after Trump took office and the administration began its sweeping immigration crackdown, intending to remove anyone living in the U.S. without legal permission. Some migrants reported waiting over a year for their appointments on the app, which were canceled the day Trump was sworn in.
Noem said that the Biden administration had long “exploited” the app because it allowed migrants to legally enter the country by booking an appointment.
“With the launching of the CBP Home app, we are restoring integrity to our immigration system,” Noem said in a statement.
“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream. If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”
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