Want to solve a problem? Just set the incentives properly, and wait for the free-market response to follow.
"Well, it's home for the holiday season," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox & Friends this morning, with the emphasis on home. Noem already offered illegal aliens in the US a chance to defray the costs of self-deportation, along with a chance for a later amnesty and return, with a $1000 bonus for those who arrange travel through the DHS app. However, since we only have three shopping days before Christmas, Noem is offering a special deal to potential holiday travelers who want to go back to their home countries for the holidays.
This Christmas season, the U.S. taxpayer is generously TRIPLING the incentive for illegal aliens to leave voluntarily. Through the end of the year, illegal aliens who self-deport using the CBP Home App can receive a $3,000 exit bonus.
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 22, 2025
Illegal aliens should take advantage of this… pic.twitter.com/AKQZChPYfZ
The DHS on Monday announced it was boosting the payout for immigrants to self-deport from $1,000 to $3,000 through the end of the year. The new payout is being dubbed a “holiday stipend” by the DHS and includes a free flight back to their home country. ...
“Raise your hand, we’ll help you get home, we’ll facilitate it— and you might get the chance to come back the right way,” Noem said. “If you wait until we detain you and arrest you and deport you ourselves, you’ll never get the chance to come back.”
She said the $3,000 offer is available to people who both have and have not been detained by DHS or have criminal charges against them. Noem said migrants can go on the CBP Home app to get the information they need and that DHS will do its part to “get you home in time for Christmas.”
The amnesty has been and remains the most valuable part of this deal, assuming the illegal aliens who come forward have never been deported before. That allows for the possibility that those who depart with the bonus money can apply for a proper and legal visa to enter in the US at some point in the future, and then restart their life here. That may be frustrating for those who know that the process can be time-consuming, but not more frustrating that in it for people who do apply for immigration legally and have to wait while resources get diverted to enforcement.
Even those whose records won't allow for a re-entry may feel motivated by this offer. Trump has another three-plus years in office, and he's going to find a lot of illegal aliens to deport. The $3,000 bonus offer might be enough for them to get out while the getting is still lucrative and end up somewhere that they choose, rather than get detained and deported elsewhere and get nothing at all out of it.
Noem added a victory lap of sorts on a related topic. During the Biden Regency, DHS lost track of over 300,000 children known to have crossed illegally into the US. According to Noem, her DHS has tracked down more than a third of those at-risk children:
Noem: "We have found over 127,000 children that the Biden administration lost. 127,000 of the almost half million children that Biden facilitated coming into this country and getting trafficked." pic.twitter.com/cjaykYH4lx
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) December 22, 2025
That's good news, certainly, but context is important here. Not all of the children lost by the Biden Regency got trafficked; presumably, only a small percentage did, apart from the trafficking that brought them into the US. Many of these cases were basically children lost administratively, but still in the care of some responsible adult. However, that's bad enough considering the risk that many of them faced as unaccompanied minors when they crossed into the US. The remaining 'lost' children need to be 'found' as soon as possible to protect them from predation. If DHS succeeds in that task, then they deserve some room to compare that performance to that of their execrable predecessors.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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