The Department of Homeland Security has quietly tripled the “exit bonus” for illegal aliens who voluntarily leave the United States, now offering $3,000 plus a free flight for those who register and depart by the end of the calendar year. This escalation from the previous $1,000 stipend is being pushed through the rebranded CBP Home mobile app as administrators try to incentivize self-deportation instead of paying huge sums to detain and forcibly remove people.
DHS has also sweetened the deal by promising forgiveness of certain civil fines and streamlining the app to make departures easier, a program the agency calls Project Homecoming. The department’s own releases make clear the goal: get people out quickly, cheaply, and with fewer resources spent on detention and court proceedings.
Make no mistake, this is a blunt instrument meant to get results, and conservatives should support practical measures that produce real removals rather than endless legal limbo. DHS points out that forced removals cost taxpayers roughly seventeen thousand dollars apiece, so offering a few thousand to secure a voluntary departure is a clear cost-saving move if it actually speeds up exits. This administration is choosing fiscal commonsense over virtue-signaling bureaucracy.
At the same time, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the White House have ordered an immediate pause of the Diversity Visa or “green card lottery” program, citing national security concerns after a violent suspect in recent campus shootings had entered the country through the DV program. The move is a long-overdue acknowledgment that a wildly permissive lottery system cannot stand unreviewed when public safety is at stake.
Patriots who put safety first should praise the pause on the lottery, which historically grants as many as fifty to fifty-five thousand permanent residency slots each year with limited vetting compared with other programs. This is not about xenophobia; it is about ensuring our immigration processes don’t leave gaps that dangerous individuals can slip through. The national security argument is plain and compelling — the people who pay the bills must come first.
Taken together, the $3,000 self-deport incentive and the suspension of the green card lottery signal a broader, tougher approach to immigration reform from this administration. From overhauling merit-based visas to ending random lotteries for H-1B and tightening screening, officials are finally aligning policy with the interests of American workers and communities. Voters wanted enforcement and order; these are the kinds of unglamorous but effective steps that deliver it.
Of course the predictable outrage machine will howl that offering cash or pausing a lottery is cruel, but the reality is that taxpayers and citizens deserve a secure country and a legal immigration system that rewards skills and respect for the law. Conservatives should not apologize for using common-sense financial levers to accelerate removals or for pressing the pause button while the government tightens vetting procedures. This is governance, not pandering.
If Washington insists on pretending borders and legal immigration don’t matter, then voters will keep sending people to fix it. For hardworking Americans watching their communities and wages be diluted, these decisive moves are a long-needed course correction — practical, unapologetic, and firmly on the side of law-abiding citizens.
