Self-deportations increase as immigrants react to Trump’s immigration threats

AP NEWS

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Michel Bérrios left the United States a few days before the new year, giving President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign for mass deportations a small victory before they even started.

A former leader of a Nicaraguan student uprising, Bérrios had been in the U.S. legally, with nearly a year remaining under President Joe Biden’s unprecedented use of humanitarian parole authority for citizens of certain vulnerable countries. But harsh talk during the U.S. election campaign filled her with anxious memories of hiding from authorities back home.

Advocates and immigration experts who have noticed such departures say Bérrios’ decision to leave the U.S., despite her legal status, shows how uncertainty and threats have led a growing number of people to leave before Trump takes office on Monday.

There isn’t data on these departures, but history has seen other eras of public backlash that drove migrants — with or without legal status — out.

Trump and his allies are counting on this “self-deportation,” the idea that life can be made unbearable enough to make people leave.

“Because (the U.S.) is not a Third World country like the ones many of us come from, I thought there would be a different culture here, and it was a rude awakening to realize that you and your family are not welcome,” Bérrios, 31, said days before her departure.

Self-deportation helps Trump to achieve his goals without the government having to spend or do anything. Trump has long said he wanted to deport millions of migrants but never deported more than 350,000 a year in his first term. Only 41,500 detention beds are funded this year, so carrying out massive deportations has significant logistical hurdles.

“If you wanna self-deport, you should self-deport because, again, we know who you are, and we’re gonna come and find you,” Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan has said.