US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is beginning to target unaccompanied immigrant children, pressing them to accept cash payment in exchange for agreeing to be deported, according to a government memo to immigrant aid groups obtained by the media.
The operation — which immigration rights advocates said was called “Freaky Friday,” though ICE denied the name — is a part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass deportation campaign. With deportation continuing apace amid the federal government shutdown, advocates speculated that the latest scheme to pay off immigrant children was deliberately timed by ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to minimize public attention.
The memo said immigrant children 14 years or older would receive $2,500 in exchange for agreeing to be deported.
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will provide a one-time resettlement support stipend of $2,500 U.S. Dollars to unaccompanied alien children, 14 years of age and older, who have elected to voluntarily depart the United States as of the date of this notice and moving forward,” said the memo, which the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that holds children in immigration custody, sent to service providers Friday.
Before receiving the government’s memo, immigrant rights advocates got word of the impending policy change and became alarmed. They began to widely circulate information about the plan in private email chains earlier this week.
“Voluntary departure has always been available,” said Melissa Adamson, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Law who reviewed the government memo. “What children need is legal counsel to safely understand the risks or benefits of this option — not the government essentially encouraging them into giving up their rights for a cash incentive.”
The government memo stipulated that children who elected to take the payment, must arrange to meet with an ICE officer. In order to waive their right to a removal hearing so that they can receive the payment, the child themselves would have to sign a form to change their status with the U.S. government.
The agency said ICE and DHS “are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families” and that financial support would only be provided at the approval of an immigration judge.
ICE told the “voluntary option” would initially be offered to 17-year-old unaccompanied children.
“The idea that immigration enforcement agents can coerce children into waiving their rights and protections under this memo to meet President Trump’s political goals is cruel,” said Bilal Askaryar, director of communications at Acacia Center for Justice, which represents and advocates for unaccompanied immigrant children. “Americans have been shocked by the tactics that ICE is using in communities across the country, and the idea that masked men would now go to 14-year-olds and ask them to waive their rights to return to the countries that they fled is shocking.”
