More Immigrants Opt to Self-Deport Rather Than Risk Being Marched Out Like Criminals

Celeste traveled from Peru to the U.S. two decades ago, then a young woman of 19, and overstayed her tourist visa. She had studied graphic design back home but, unable to work in her field without papers, instead found arduous work cleaning hotel rooms and offices in Los Angeles. She built a life here, making friends and taking courses at a local community college. She paid her taxes annually, hoping she could one day gain legal status.

But years passed without the dramatic reforms needed to reshape and unclog the legal pathways to U.S. citizenship. And in the months since President Trump started his second term, her American dream has imploded. She’s unnerved by the news images of undocumented immigrants being loaded onto planes, shackled like violent criminals, and returned to their native countries. The thought of being ripped from her home, without time to pack up her belongings or say goodbye to friends, shakes her to the core.

So, Celeste has made a tough decision: She will continue cleaning offices and saving money for just a few more months, and return to Peru by year’s end.

Even with a plan to leave, she feels vulnerable and exposed. She now avoids restaurants, her favorite dance spots, even trail hikes. She’s stopped enrolling in online classes, she said, because she’s apprehensive about registering her name or address.

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Last month, the agency launched an ad campaign urging people in the country without authorization to leave immediately. “If you don’t, we will find you and we will deport you,” agency Secretary Kristi Noem says in the ad. This week, Trump told Fox Noticias he’s formulating a plan to give a stipend and an airplane ticket to immigrants in the country illegally who opt to “self-deport.”

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Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center in the Inland Empire, said her staff members talk “daily” with folks who are considering leaving. Pummeled by the “constant attacks” on immigrants, she said, people are posing logistical questions: Can they take their cars? What happens to their kids’ education?

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