The Department of Homeland Security has paid out roughly 100,000 bonuses to illegal immigrants who have registered to self-deport through the government’s special app.
Most of those were $1,000 payments, though the department experienced a surge when it offered a bonus $3,000 holiday payment last month, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Washington Times’ “The Sitdown With Alex Swoyer” podcast.
That means more than $100 million has been paid out in bonuses to compel illegal immigrants to leave the U.S. The department also is paying for plane tickets for those who register.
Ms. McLaughlin said the total is significantly lower than the $17,000 it costs to arrest, detain and fly out the typical illegal immigrant.
“It’s like a 70% savings, at least,” she said. “The more deportations we see, the more self-deportations. It’s kind of a virtuous cycle, as far as those in the country illegally are getting the message.”
Ms. McLaughlin addressed some of the personal vitriol and threats aimed at her from Democratic politicians and Trump opponents, particularly those on social media.
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“We wear it as a badge of honor,” she said. “They are going after us because we are giving the facts and the truth to the American people, and we are doing so in a way that is swift but also effective. She rejected Democratic lawmakers’ accusations that she had misled or lied to the public.
She declared the Trump administration “the most transparent … in American history” and said that’s “a threat” to Democrats’ narrative.
Ms. McLaughlin took aim at sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with the department’s deportation efforts.
She said Los Angeles is probably the worst sanctuary in the country. Chicago might have taken the crown earlier, but “their police have started working with us.”
President Trump said this month that he would stop federal money from going to sanctuary municipalities and to states that host them. That move is supposed to take effect Feb. 1.
Courts blocked past efforts to deny sanctuaries money, dating back to the first Trump administration. Ms. McLaughlin said Mr. Trump is committed to the attempt.
SPECIAL COVERAGE: The Sitdown with Alex Swoyer
“The president is looking at this on even broader terms,” she said.
“Sanctuary” has no official definition. Stringency varies by jurisdiction, though the common thread is that sanctuaries restrict cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in picking up illegal immigrant deportation targets from their prisons and jails.
Some jurisdictions alert ICE to impending releases but refuse to allow federal officers into their facilities or to hold migrants beyond their regular release time. Others won’t notify ICE, and the strictest sanctuaries hinder federal officers operating on their own, such as by trying to block them from making arrests even in courthouses or other public spaces.
Sanctuaries say they cooperate with criminal warrants but are dismissive of civil warrants used in immigration cases.
Ms. McLaughlin said acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Los Angeles is attempting to bring criminal charges in many of the cases.
“We are certainly looking to use that as a blueprint across the country,” she told The Times.
Ms. McLaughlin spoke to The Times last week just after the second ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis this month. The Homeland Security Department said three illegal immigrants ganged up on an officer and beat him with a snow shovel and broom handle until he fired, wounding one of them in the leg.
The earlier shooting involved Renee Good, who was killed during a confrontation with an ICE officer on a Minneapolis street. Video of that encounter has deeply divided the country. Mr. Trump’s supporters say Ms. Good’s refusal to comply with commands to get out of her vehicle, which then lurched toward and hit an ICE officer, justified the shooting.
The president’s opponents say the video suggests Ms. Good was trying to drive away and the officer could have moved out of the way without firing.
Ms. McLaughlin said the shooting was justified and the officer followed his training.
Asked to square the different views of the shooting, Ms. McLaughlin said, “There’s a bit of ICE hysteria going on.”
“I think it’s also a degree of Trump derangement syndrome,” she said.
Ms. McLaughlin said organizations are spurring the protests in Minneapolis.
“It does look like there’s a degree of foreign interference here, as well as domestic,” she said, though she didn’t elaborate on that point.
She did say some protesters are recycling from location to location.
“We are seeing a lot of the same individuals who are now in Minneapolis were previously in Portland, previously [in] Los Angeles, New York. They are certainly busing people in, there is funding,” she said, suggesting a well-organized effort that the administration is investigating.
Ms. McLaughlin said federal agents have deported “upwards of 600,000” illegal immigrants since the president took office and are deporting at a rate of about 2,500 daily.
That is higher than ICE’s official figures indicate.
The latest data shows that ICE formally removed 118,164 people, or about 1,200 daily, from Oct. 1 through Jan. 7.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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