Trump Administration Offers Migrant Children Cash To Self-deport

By Maria Sacchetti / The Washington Post

10:19 JST, October 5, 2025

The Trump administration is offering $2,500 to unaccompanied migrant children age 14 and older if they return to their home countries voluntarily, according to officials and records reviewed by The Washington Post.

A government record detailing the “Family Assistance Reintegration Program” says that minors residing in U.S. Health and Human Services shelters will be eligible. An average of 2,000 minors were in shelters as of August, according to agency data.

Department of Homeland Security officials said Friday the financial assistance will first be offered to 17-year-olds. They described the program as “strictly voluntary” and aimed at helping children return to their families. Minors will be given the money only after an immigration judge grants their request to depart the United States and they return home, the department said.

“Cartels trafficked countless unaccompanied children into the United States during the Biden Administration, and DHS and HHS have been working diligently to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those children,” federal immigration officials said in a statement.

Immigrant rights advocates immediately condemned the program and said it risks sending vulnerable children back to the nations they fled. Lawyers worried that authorities will pressure minors to surrender their right to full immigration proceedings and other humanitarian protections, in violation of federal law.

“Safe voluntary departure requires legal counsel – not government marketing or what amounts to cash bribes for kids,” said Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “This administration’s actions again prove it cannot be trusted to protect children.”

DHS officials said the program is an opportunity for the record numbers of unaccompanied minors who came to the United States under the Biden administration to return home with money to start fresh. The Border Patrol apprehended more than 525,000 unaccompanied minors under the last administration, up from nearly 200,000 during President Donald Trump’s first term.

HHS officials asked shelter caregivers on Friday to notify them as soon as possible, and no later than 24 hours, if children were willing to accept the offer.

The plan to offer money to minors to depart the United States is likely to face legal challenges. Under federal law, the U.S. government may swiftly return children from neighboring countries such as Mexico and Canada, but federal laws say children from other nations are supposed to be taken to child-appropriate shelters and placed with a vetted parent or guardian as quickly as possible.

Such unaccompanied minors may apply for protections such as asylum or a special visa for neglected or abandoned children, and those proceedings can take years. But advocates for immigrants said many children are languishing in HHS shelters despite having sponsors in the United States who are willing to care for them and help them find lawyers to prepare their immigration cases.

“If they’re not doing that and holding them for the pendency of the removal proceedings, they’re violating the law,” said Sophia Leticia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. “They need to be processed for release as quickly as possible.”

Homeland Security and immigration officials said they are offering financial aid to children so that they can make an “informed decision” about returning home.

Migrant children and teens traveling without their parents have been arriving in increasing numbers over the past decade, and they spiked to historic highs under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has alleged that children were sent to the United States under President Joe Biden to work, and that many ended up in abusive homes or in dangerous jobs such as meatpacking.

“Many of these [unaccompanied minors] had no choice when they were dangerously smuggled into this country,” DHS said in its statement. “ICE and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement at HHS are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families.”

Advocates for immigrants say many children were also fleeing oppressive regimes, gang violence or hunger, and deserve a chance to apply for asylum or another form of legal residency. They urged lawyers to inform minors of their rights and advise them to not sign anything without consulting their attorney.

The Trump administration has a history of disregarding the well-being of children, they said.

During Trump’s first term he separated more than 4,000 migrant children from their parents after they crossed the border illegally, without a plan to reunite them, drawing widespread condemnation.

This year he has split up hundreds of migrant children from their families or guardians inside the United States. And a Trump-appointed federal judge slammed the government for trying to deport dozens of Guatemalan children in the middle of the night over the Labor Day weekend. The judge, who blocked the removals, said the government falsely claimed their parents wanted them back. Dozens of children were traumatized, and one girl vomited in fear.

Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, called the new program “an egregious abuse of power,” and urged DHS to cancel the plan.

“Unaccompanied children seeking safety in the United States deserve our protection rather than being coerced into agreeing to return back to the very conditions that placed their lives and safety at risk,” she said in a statement. “Unaccompanied children should never be removed from the United States without a full and fair process to determine if they are eligible for U.S. protection.”

– – –

Teo Armus contributed to this report.