Trump administration offering some unaccompanied migrant children $2,500 to self-deport, according to memo

The federal government offers unaccompanied migrant children aged 14 and more than $ 2,500 to leave the United States on their own will, or “self-driving” in its country, according to a memo sent by the Ministry of Health and Social Services and obtained by NBC News.

The opinion was sent on Friday afternoon to legal service providers across the country representing unaccompanied migrant children. Eligible children are those who are from countries other than Mexico and who are currently under the care of the Resettlement of Refugees (Orr), which is part of HHS.

“This advantage is intended to support reintegration efforts after departures,” says the opinion.

The opinion also indicates that the Ministry of Internal Security, which issues the allowances, has already identified unaccompanied children in police custody who said they wanted to deposit or who will deposit “for voluntary departure”.

Health and social services have returned all requests to the Ministry of Internal Security.

The effort to encourage minors to self-partner became a rumor on social networks Thursday evening among the defenders of immigrants who declared that they had heard immigration and the application of customs labeled the “Freaky Friday” operation.

Ice said that the name was a “ridiculous term” mastered but conceded that the agency offered money to minor children who are not accompanied to self-express themselves.

Emily Covington, assistant director of the ICE public affairs office, said in a statement that the federal government’s offer was a “strictly voluntary option to return home to their families”.

Covington said that the option gives unaccompanied children “a choice and allows them to make an informed decision on their future. Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge granted the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin. ”

This decision alarmed the defenders of immigration across the country.

Wendy Young, with children who need defense, said in a statement: “Unaccompanied children should never be removed from the United States without a complete and fair process to determine if they are eligible for US protection.”

“This operation undermines the laws that guarantee this process for unaccompanied children, and this goes against the long -standing commitment of our country to protect the most vulnerable among us – children – violence, trafficking, abuse, persecution and other serious dangers,” she continued.

Roxana Corties-Mills, who heads the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement at Nebraska, said whatever the offer, rumors on this subject had sown fear of immigrant communities. She said that a rural school district of the state called her office asking, “Should we tell the parents to draw their children from the school?” She added: “It is the first time in nine years of work with unaccompanied children that I hear this type of offer.”

In Houston, Dalia Castillo-Granados, director of Children’s Immigration Law Academy, said that the money supply to children “raises many concerns given the vulnerable position in which these children find themselves.”

The Trump administration offer is involved in the middle of a global thrust to bring undocumented immigrants to self-conforming, offering adults and their families $ 1,000 to leave the country as part of a separate program. During the Labor Day weekend, the administration also tried to expel several unaccompanied children in their country of origin, Guatemala, but it was temporarily prevented from doing so following legal proceedings because the DHS loaded the children of planes.

“We see a lot of models and receive many reports that ice uses a lot of pressure tactics to encourage people to take expulsion. It is quite serious to use these tactics on adults to encourage them to self-express themselves, but it is a whole new level of concern to try it with the children of Vanessa Dojaquez, News from Friday.

More than 300,000 children entered by themselves in the United States during the Biden administration before being released to parents, parents or non-family sponsors across the country.

In August, the federal government had 2,011 minor children unaccompanied in its care, according to the HHS website.

As a rule, children who cross the border without legal or tutor are temporarily transferred to the HHS guard until they can be twinned with an American sponsor. Children who immigrate to the United States without parents have special protections under the law on the re-authorization of trafficking victims, unless they are Mexico or Canada.

The Trump administration sought to thwart these special protections and recently tried to deport Guatemah children who were still looking for asylum.

Although they have special protections to ensure that they are projected for a possible trafficking, the unaccompanied children who crossed the border were illegally expelled, including in democratic administrations. But encouraging children to leave through financial plans has never been done before.

Under the Biden Administration, unaccompanied minors crossing the border increased in record number in 2021, causing arrears of health and social services while the agency had trouble placing them with appropriate sponsors. The Trump administration said that many of these children had been placed in dangerous environments where they could be mistreated or exploited for work.