Trump admin pushing immigrants to self-deport as its deportation numbers lag

Trump administration officials are ramping up pressure on immigrants to leave the United States of their own volition, or “self deport,” as the number of people the government is deporting from the interior of the country remains stagnant, far below the vision for mass deportations promised by President Donald Trump and his top officials.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported just over 12,300 immigrants from March 1 to March 28, slightly under the 12,700 people it deported during the same period last year, according to ICE data obtained by NBC News. ICE deported around 11,000 people in February.  

A major factor in the deportation numbers’ being lower than they were during the Biden administration is the drastic drop in border crossings since Trump took office and effectively ended any pathway for people crossing the border to claim asylum. Last month, the latest month for which data is publicly available, Customs and Border Protection had just over 11,000 encounters with undocumented migrants at the southern border, compared with nearly 190,000 in March 2024. It is easier and faster for the government to deport people detained near the border than to find them after they disperse across the United States. 

The Trump administration still faces major funding and logistical obstacles to drastically ramping up deportations in the way Trump promised on the campaign trail, where he talked about the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history, and in his inaugural address, when he promised to deport “millions and millions.” That pace would most likely be achievable only with a massive cash influx to ICE from Congress, according to the sources familiar with the discussions. The funding bill that recently passed Congress increased ICE’s annual budget only by a little more than 5%, from $9 billion to $9.5 billion.

While it waits on more money to be allocated, three sources familiar with the discussions told NBC News that the relatively slow pace of deportations has led the Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is part of, to push self-deportation.

“There’s an acknowledgment they can’t get the numbers up if they have to find, arrest, detain and fly all of these people home. So they have to push for self-deportation,” said one of the sources familiar with the discussions.

Asked for comment, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: “Deportations have already exceeded 117,000 in just the first 70 days. This is just the beginning. We are unleashing DHS law enforcement that has had its hands tied behind its back for four years under [former President Joe] Biden and [former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas.

“These deportations don’t even include the number of illegal aliens who have self-deported. Illegal aliens are hearing Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s message loud and clear: leave now or face the consequences. This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order, arrest, detainment and deportation.”

The 117,000 number McLaughlin provided included people deported by CBP and the Coast Guard, who would have been encountered at or even before they reached the border.

In what DHS called a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, Noem has been encouraging immigrants to self-deport or face consequences. 

“President Trump has a clear message for those who are in our country illegally: Leave now. If you don’t, we will find you,” she says in the ad, which also praises Trump and his policies. 

DHS has also repurposed the Biden administration’s CBP One App, which previously gave people at the border the chance to book appointments to claim asylum, into CBP Home, an app that allows immigrants to tell the government when they plan to self-deport. CBP Home may allow the Trump administration to keep track of the numbers of people who self-deport. 

Some of the administration’s very public deportation tactics, such as sending immigrants to a megaprison in El Salvador known as CECOT and to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are also viewed as possible motivators for immigrants to self-deport, the sources familiar with the discussions about self-deportation said. During a recent visit to CECOT, Noem recorded a video standing in front of men incarcerated there in which she said the prison is a possible outcome for anyone crossing the border illegally. 

Talking to reporters Monday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said the administration wants to deport “much more” than 1 million undocumented immigrants per year, which would require an average pace of about 83,000 deportations per month. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that 1 million deportations in a single year is the “aspirational number” within the Trump administration.

A separate person familiar with discussions on Capitol Hill said there seems to be a coalescing around a more realistic goal of deporting 600,000 migrants in a year, a number that is based on what is possible from expanding bed space in existing ICE detention centers. Going higher than that would be likely to require building new detention facilities, the person said, which could take years; it is not clear whether the administration will push to go higher.