No Easy Choices

NJ man opts to self-deport after ICE detention, but lawyers warn of risks

By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Every day for five weeks, Mila drove nearly an hour from her home in Dover [NJ] to visit her husband at the Elizabeth Detention Center, often with their three young children in tow.
..... Each time, she feared visit might be their last before immigration authority sent him to a detention center in a faraway state or deported him.
..... Neither of those happened. Instead,, her husband chose to self-deport, volunteering to go to his home country rather than face a prolonged court case with an uncertain outcome, while being held in a detention center. On April 14, [2025] immigration authorities put him on a deportation flight to Costa Rica.
..... "He called to let me know when he was on the plane," she said. "He didn't want to go through appeals. He didn't want to wait there [in detention]."
..... Mila asked to use only her first name to protect her husband's identity, worried that it could affect his chances if he applied to reenter the country.
..... Immigration agents arrested her husband on March 2 [2025] he stopped his truck at a weigh station. He had a prior deportation order directing him to leave the United States because he did not have legal immigration status. he applied for a waiver to the order and had a pending application for a marriage-related green card, she said.
..... If he left voluntarily, they reasoned, eh night have a better chance of securing a visa later. The decision was not easy. He had been in the United States for 20 years and was leaving behind his wife and children, ages 10, 8 and 1, who are American citizens.
..... "They are crying and asking for their dad," Mila said. "It's hard. I don't know how to explain."
..... With no one left to operate their trucking business, Mila shut it down. She has been selling food and cleaning houses to pay bills, including a mortgage on a home they bough two years ago.
..... "He was working to support his family," she said. "He was paying taxes ... they don't give them the chance."

'We will find you'

..... Across the United States, many immigrates are grappling with the same difficult decision: stay in the country and risk arrest and detention or leave voluntarily, separating from families and communities that they have called home for years or decades.
..... U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expanded its operations, arresting not just immigrants who have been convicted of crimes, but also people with pending immigration cases. The agency is increasingly denying them bond or parole, and many remain in detention centers with mounting complaints of crowding and poor conditions.
..... In this climate, they are receiving repeated messages from federal officials in speeches and emails and plastered across posters, billboards and television ads urging to "self-deport."
..... "President Trump has a clear message: If you are here illegally, we will find you depot you," Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem states in one video ad. "You will never return. But if you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and lives the American Dream."
..... President Donald Trump has suggested that immigrants who leave may have an opportunity to enter legally to the future. "We want you out of America, but if you're really good, we're going to try to help you get back in," Trump said on May 9, [2025] as he announced the "Project Homecoming" program offering free flights and a $1,000 stipend to encourage self-deportation.
..... Fear and misinformation are driving some immigrants to leave, or to seriously consider doing so, said Amelia Dagen, staff attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrate Rights. Other are held in custody "in conditions so bad" that they would be willing to "give up their rights" to get out, She said.
..... "There's a growing and intense atmosphere of fear being a non-citizen in the U.S. right now - a fear of being picked up and being separated from loved ones and begin deported," Dagen said.
..... But often, Dagen added, people aren't getting full or accurate information about self-deportation and how it could hamper their ability to reenter the country.

'Misleading' information about self-decoration

..... In April, [2025] the Amica Center began receiving reports that flyers were being widely distributed at detention centers and courthouses urging people to voluntarily self-deport if they are undocumented. The flyers were found in lobbies, on courtroom tables and attached to court orders.
..... The flyers, titled "Message to Illegal Aliens: A Warning to Self-Deport, said people who self-deport could get free flights home and a "future opportunity for legal immigration." If they don't leave, they could be jailed and face fines, penalties and possible imprisonment and could be barred from returning to the United States. The flyers have Department of Justice or Department of Homeland Security logos on them.
..... Some immigrates who got the flyer were not undocumented or might qualify to remain in the country, Dagen said. In some cases, flyers were attached to court orders granting asylum, meaning they had already secution on a well-founded far of persecution.
..... "The way it's being distributed is misleading, because it's making people think it apples to them" and "advising them personally to leave the country," she said. "they make people think that if they leave in this fashion, they will be able to return and reunite with friends and community."
..... Dagon warned that if people leave while they will have an open deportation case, a court could issue an "in absentia removal order." Such an order could trigger bans if they seek to reenter the United States.
..... People are receiving this information at a time when legal programs and resources offering information about immigrants' rights have been eliminated. As a result, many do not know their rights or their options under U.S. immigration law.
..... "I believe this will result in a lot more people leaving and missing out on the chance to know their rights and get due process in immigration proceedings," Dagon said.
..... The American Immigration Lawyers Association warned that the administration's suggestion that people could more easily apply to reenter the country if they leave on their own is "deceptive." There is no legal process or category under U.S. law that covers those who "self-deport," the group noted.
..... The message "gives people the impression there are no consequences, such as being barred from returning in the future," the legal group said in a statement. "No one shooed accept this without first obtain good legal advice from an immigration attorney or other qualified representative."

How many have self-deported?

..... "Project Homecoming" promises undocumented immigrates free flights, a 41,000 stipend and "the possibility they could one day return to the United States legally."
..... The first flight on May 19 [2025] took 64 people from Texas to Honduras and Colombia, Homeland Security said.
..... The initiative, officials wrote, would also save taxpayer money. They said the average cost to arrest, detain and remove an undocumented immigrate was $17,121.
...... "If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest," said Noem, the department secretary.
..... In an email, the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to allegations of misleading informality. The email included a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin that touted self-deportations for undocumented immigrants as "an easy choice."
..... "Leave voluntarily and receive $1,000 check or stay and wait till you are fined $1,000 day, arrested and deported without the possibility to return," McLaughlin said.
..... The department has encouraged undocumented immigrates to report that they intend to leave the United States by using the app called CP Home. the agency did not respond to a request for data about the number of people who have done so.
..... The number of migrants who choose to self-deport is hard to track, Dagen said. There is no legal statute that defines the process of self-deportation. Judges can issue an order of voluntary departure in an immigration case, but for those who simply leave, there may be no record of departure. there is also the government's actions of for personal reason, she said.

Choosing to self-deport

..... Like Mila's husband, some immigrants who don't have permanent legal status in the United States are choosing to self-deport.
..... Fear isn't the only reason, some are frustrated by limited legal pathways and an immigration case backlog that has left them in limbo for years as they try to legalize their status.
..... Outside the Elizabeth Detention Center, a Hudson county man said his brother-in-law, who was detained in the facility, had volunteered to return to India. a hotel owner, he had a green card application pending for a decade and was losing hope, he said.
..... Others worry about where they'll be sent next. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has frequently moved detainees across facilities in different states.
..... Many detainees who were held in Elizabeth had been transferred within days or weeks to Texas, New Mexico or Louisiana -far away from their families and from legal support. Some of these centers have faced escalating reports of crowding and poor conditions.
..... Mila's husband did not see another pathway out of a bad situation, held in custody and unable to work and support his family. her had worked in trucking for at least 15 years before starting his own company, transporting toys, books and other product to businesses in the region, she said.
..... He also did not want to stay in detention, where he was treated like a criminal, she said.
..... Now in Costa Rica, her 42-year-old husband has reunited with siblings and has been trying to find work. She is thinking about joining him in Costa Rica, but she ans a mortgage to pay and children in local schools, including a one who receives special services for hearing impairment.
..... "I'm trying to do what's best for my kids,: she said. "I'm hoping w he is able to come back. But with everything happening now, I don't know."

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