Self-deportation is an approach to dealing withillegal immigration, used in theUnited States and theUnited Kingdom, that allows an otherwise inadmissible person to voluntarily depart a country for which they have no legal ties to rather than face removal proceedings in front of the native court system. It became associated withillegal immigration to the United States in the 1990s and later prominently with the policy of theSecond presidency of Donald Trump in 2025.
This term was used as early as 1984 in aPeople article about the film directorRoman Polanski, which referred to his self-deporting.[1] The term gained its current association with illegal immigration in the 1990s, especially inCalifornia. In 1994,William Safire described its usage byCalifornia governorPete Wilson's immigration strategy, exemplified byProposition 187, which prevented illegal aliens from using a variety of state social services. Safire summarized the philosophy of the approach as holding that "the most cost-effective way to change behavior is to make life unbearable under present behavior."[2][3] The same year,Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul launched asatirical campaign involving a character named "Daniel D. Portado" (a pun ondeportado,Spanish fordeported), who facetiously promoted self-deportation.[3][4]
The Trump administration, particular in theSecond presidency of Donald Trump, has strongly encouraged the practice of self-deportation, offering $1,000, travel expenses and forgiveness of previous fines as an incentive to self-deport.[5] Critics have argued that the administration has used both fines and lawsuits as a "scare tactic" to encourage self-deportation.[6]