Trump to pay migrant teens Rs 2 lakh to return home under new programme

The Trump administration will pay unaccompanied migrant teens $2,500 to voluntarily return home, a move rights groups say could pressure minors to drop asylum bids

The Trump administration is preparing to roll out a new programme that would pay unaccompanied migrant teenagers in federal custody to return to their home countries, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The plan, first reported by Bloomberg, will start with 17-year-olds and offer $2,500 (about Rs 2.22 lakh) to minors who voluntarily agree to depart the United States. The payment would be made after an immigration judge approves their request and the individual arrives back in their country of origin, an unnamed official told the news agency.

 

HHS, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, said in a statement that the initiative was created to provide options for children who were brought into the US without their families.

 

Officials described the programme as voluntary, saying it would give unaccompanied minors—many of whom were smuggled into the country—the ability to make an informed decision about their future.

 

Fears programme could pressure minors to drop asylum bids

 

Advocates and immigration lawyers have raised concerns that the plan could be expanded to include younger children, possibly those as young as 14. They warn that such an approach could pressure minors to abandon claims for protection, including asylum, and give up legal safeguards that prevent deportation before they turn 18.

 

Wendy Young, president of the legal aid and advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense, called the proposal an “egregious abuse of power.”

 

“This operation undermines laws that guarantee due process for unaccompanied children, and it runs counter to our nation’s longstanding commitment to protect the most vulnerable among us – children – from violence, trafficking, abuse, persecution, and other grave dangers,” Young told Reuters. “We urge DHS to immediately halt its operation and ensure that every child in US custody has access to the rights and protections enshrined in US law.” 

 

Legal experts warn of coercion and limited safeguards

 

Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council in Washington, told Politico, an American political news outlet, that financial offers of this kind have often been “coercive.”

 

“Those financial incentives have often been presented as the only way for people to avoid punitive and terrorising consequences even if they have legitimate claims to legal status in the United States,” said Gupta. “Does failure to take the money and return to a place you fled mean that you will be detained once you age out of the unaccompanied minors status?”

 

Under US law, immigrant children receive higher levels of protection than adults, including limits on how long they can be detained under a long-standing court settlement. However, like adults in immigration proceedings, they are not guaranteed a lawyer to help them through the process.

 

As of August, about 2,000 unaccompanied children were in the care of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to government data.

 

Earlier offer promised $1,000 and travel support for adults

 

The administration’s latest proposal follows an earlier offer introduced this year, under which undocumented migrants were promised $1,000 and paid travel costs if they agreed to leave the US voluntarily.

 

“Self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the time.

 

President Donald Trump has also said that those who take up the offer may one day be eligible for a legal pathway to return.

 

Since his return to office in January, the president has stepped up his crackdown on illegal immigration, using a series of executive measures that include the invocation of a centuries-old wartime law. Several of these moves have already drawn legal challenges.