Free Republic

While ICE arrests and deportations have grabbed headlines, President Trump is also running a separate but complementary “mass deportation” program — one that encourages aliens here unlawfully to go home voluntarily. And if reports are correct, that plan is more successful than anyone could have imagined. Based on government data, my organization, the Center for Immigration Studies, has conservatively estimated there are about 15.4 million illegal aliens in the United States, a 50% increase over the four tumultuous years of the Biden administration. That’s no surprise, given how Biden and his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ignored congressional...

Thousands of illegal immigrants facing potential involuntary removal from the U.S. have instead opted to self-deport through an app provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The number of immigrants who have opted to self-deport over the last month using the CBP Home app is over 5,000, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data shared with Fox News Digital. The self-deportations come as the Trump administration has ramped up a messaging campaign aimed at encouraging illegal immigrants to leave the country voluntarily, most recently releasing a flyer addressed to “illegal aliens” that threatens new fines for those...

A Cornell University graduate student who had his US visa revoked due to protest activities against Israel has chosen to leave the US rather than be deported. Momodou Taal, who is a joint citizen of the UK and The Gambia, had his student visa revoked due to his on-campus protest activities last year as the Israel-Gaza war raged. Mr Taal previously sued to block his deportation, but on Monday posted on X that he had chosen to leave the country "free and with my head held high". It comes after a judge had denied his request to delay his deportation....

WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that one of the Columbia students who had her student visa revoked for advocating for violence and terrorism self-deported using the CBP Home App and ICE arrested a Palestinian student for overstaying her expired F-1 visa. Ranjani Srinivasan, a citizen and national of India, entered the United States on a F-1 student visa as doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University. Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hammas, a terrorist organization. On March 5, 2025, the Department of State revoked her visa. The Department of Homeland Security has obtained...

A second protester who took part in anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University has been nabbed by immigration officials, who also revoked the visa of another student “for advocating for violence and terrorism,” sources said Friday. Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian who hails from the West Bank, was busted by Homeland Security agents Thursday for alleged immigration violations related to overstaying on an expired student visa, the sources said. Kordia — who was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark, New Jersey — was first arrested in April 2024 for taking part in one of the protests on Columbia’s campus...

LOS ANGELES — José cared for the bottle-fed babies, 700 of them in all. He knew a calf was healthy if her eyes were bright and her appetite hearty. Droopy ears were a bad sign. He was attuned to calf coughs. “His job was to do all things a mom would do to look after her young,” said Mary Kraft, who employed José and his brother, Juan, both undocumented immigrants from Mexico, for a decade at her Quail Ridge Dairy in Colorado. Then about a year ago, the brothers informed Ms. Kraft that they were returning to Mexico. They had...

The number of illegal aliens who are choosing to voluntarily deport themselves has spiked since President Donald Trump entered the White House. Illegal immigrants who were granted voluntary departure — also known as “self-deportation” — increased by 50% in 2017, according to information compiled by The Marshall Project. In fiscal year 2018, the number of aliens who asked an immigration court for permission to leave the country on their own accord doubled from the previous fiscal year. Applications in 2018, in fact, reached a seven-year high. The rising number of self-deportations far outpaces the 17% growth in overall U.S. immigration...

Khaled Altarkeet is so frustrated, he is “self-deporting.” After an immigration quagmire left his business visa in limbo, the owner of a popular cafe across from San Jose State University has closed his business, let go his half dozen employees, donated the leftover food to Catholic Charities and, on Wednesday, will board a plane with his wife and four children to fly back to his home country of Kuwait. “I’m shutting the business and forgetting the United States,” said Altarkeet, sitting for the last time in the empty cafe with the chairs stacked on the tables last week. “I will...

There’s a chance that what ails the GOP is terminal, but to give ourselves a chance at recovery, we’ve got to move—physically. The Republican Party is sick, so sick it can’t breathe, and its lack of oxygen has given it severe muscle fatigue. There’s a chance that what ails the GOP is terminal, but to give ourselves a chance at recovery, we’ve got to move—physically.The party’s national committees, think-tank brains, campaign strategists, and government functionaries all live in the fever swamps of Washington that firmly anchor the snotty southern end of the Acela Corridor. The GOP’s elected and unelected leaders...

This idea to use the tax code as a method for getting businesses to replace illegals with legal workers is amazing! Trump could do an executive order and put this in place immediately. It's even better than building a wall because a border wall doesn't do anything about the illegals who are already here. This article describes something that would cause millions of illegals thrown out of work to deport themselves. No ICE round-ups necessary. No need to wait for Congress!!!!

At the end of a lonely country road in upstate New York, a taxi pulls up. Five people get out and stand uncertainly in the freezing rain - two men from Yemen, a woman from Eritrea and her two small boys. They've come to flee America through its northern border, in to Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police waiting on the other side of the snowy ditch tell them they will be arrested if they cross at this unofficial border point. The two men, the woman and her sons take just a few steps over the invisible border and in...

Illegal aliens here in the United States would leave in huge numbers were the United States attacked by a foreign force. From personal conversations, it is evident that the Mexican, Central American, Caribbean and South American contingent would look for the first plane, train or bus out of town were such to happen. Moms have clearly stated they would take their children and leave. More than likely, Indians, Pakistanis, Middle Easterners, etc. would also flee. Those who have been living here off of the goodwill of the American people would turn and run in the event of armed conflict. This...

Sen. Ted Cruz insists he'll deport 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. if elected president, but won't create a special force to do it. Cruz's opponent Donald Trump has said he would create a deportation force that will go from "door-to-door" and remove all of the illegal immigrants from the country. Pressed by CNN's Jake Tapper over whether he would do the same, Cruz said there are already agencies to do that. "We have a door-to-door force, it's called ICE and border patrol," the Texas Republican said. -snip- Pressed by Tapper to explain how he would remove an estimated...

I have a question for you FReepers. In a Primary debate in late January, 2012, Romney tried to get to the right on illegal immigration by proposing that we make conditions so difficult for the illegals that they pack it up and go home on their own (i.e., self-deportation), rather than rounding them up and deporting them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObVnA0nIx_s A Google search finds many columns on this topic, but only immediately after that debate. Then Obama brought it up in an October debate, just before the election and blasted Romney on it. After the election, the Republican 'advisers' (most of them...

<p>Hey, GOP primary losers, you better get out there fast with a real immigration plan, because right now you are losing to Donald Trump and that makes you the epitome of loserdom. But unlike Trump, you should be serious about ending the illegal immigration nightmare. His supporters are. Hell, his opponents are, too. Yet some of you haven’t just flirted with amnesty – Rubio tried yet couldn’t score, but donor class puffball Jeb Bush has gotten to third base with amnesty and is trying to round home.</p>

'Go home' immigration posters are already working, Downing Street claims Downing Street has claimed that the Home Office’s controversial “go home” immigration campaign is “already working” and suggested the scheme could be rolled out across the country. By Peter Dominiczak, Political Correspondent 1:10PM BST 29 Jul 2013 According to David Cameron’s spokesman there has been a “great deal of interest” from illegal immigrants voluntarily calling a Government helpline and asking how to leave the country. However, Downing Street later indicated that the Home Office has not actually provided any statistics that prove the scheme is working and that officials have...

IÂ’ve elsewhere addressed other shortcomings in this morningÂ’s Wall Street Journal editorial urging Republicans to reassess what is portrayed, in the wake of strong Hispanic electoral support for President Obama, as their hostility to immigration. Here, IÂ’d like to focus on the editorsÂ’ swipe at Mitt Romney's endorsement of "self-deportation": " Mr. Romney ... often pandered to his party's nativist wing (especially after Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the primaries), even endorsing what he called 'self-deportation.' That may have endeared him to one or two radio talk show hosts, but it proved a disaster on Tuesday. This is an...

Sales of suitcases and duffel bags are brisk at Las Petacas Luggage on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis. Owner Santos Jimenez Hernandes says he sells lots of luggage to people on their way back to Mexico. "The majority of the people are telling me that they've had problems with immigration," he said. Signs of the change are evident in Minnesota, where the number of Mexican-born immigrants has "leveled off some" over the past five years and is now around 60,000, according to estimates from State Demographer Susan Brower. Brower said her sense is that the number of jobs has declined....

The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries. The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border...

The number of Mexican immigrants living illegally in the U.S. has dropped significantly for the first time in decades, showing a dramatic shift as many illegal workers are moving back to Mexico from the U.S. because there are so few job opportunities. The new analysis comes amid renewed debate over U.S. immigration policy as the Supreme Court hears arguments this week on Arizona's tough immigration law. Mexican immigrants make account for nearly 60 per cent of the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. and last year there were 6.1million in America. That number was down from its peak in 2007...