Kristi Noem Claims Hundreds Of Thousands Of Illegal Immigrants Have Self-Deported

At a press briefing on Friday in Illinois, DHS Sec. Kristi Noem spoke about the self-deportation of illegal immigrants.

Transcript

00:00So with that, I'll open it up to any questions that you may have.

00:03Secretary, you guys have spent $20 million taxpayer dollars on a campaign to get people to self-deport using the CBP Home app.

00:12How many people have actually done that? What's been the return on investment for taxpayers?

00:16Well, actually, the $20 million campaign was to send a message to people that if they were here in this country illegally,

00:23that they should go home on their own.

00:24If they wait until we arrest them and we have to remove them, they'll never get the chance to come back to the United States.

00:29So it wasn't just on the app. It was also encourage them to voluntarily go home.

00:33We know thousands and thousands of people have used the app,

00:36but we also know that hundreds of thousands of people have left on their own, not utilizing a government program to do so.

00:43I've been to, I think, 10 different Central American and South American countries

00:50and visited with their presidents, with their foreign ministers, interacted with the Department of State,

00:54and over and over again, I'm hearing that hundreds of thousands of their citizens are coming home.

00:59Voluntarily.

01:00They've seen the ads.

01:01They've seen the messages on social media that if they go home on their own,

01:06they'll get the opportunity to come back to the United States the right way.

01:09And so most of these countries, as well, are setting up programs to welcome their individuals home.

01:15They have housing loan programs that they're setting up.

01:19They're allowing them to have food assistance for several months.

01:22Several of the countries I've recently visited with are training individuals and workers to come home

01:27because their economy has a need for those individuals.

01:30So sending that message has been extremely helpful in making sure that people know that here we're going to enforce our laws

01:37and that there's a right way to come to this country.

01:40You're going to be allowed to do that if you voluntarily leave.

01:42Do you have, like, current comprehensive numbers, specific numbers?

01:46We can get it for you, but each specific country has given it to us along the way.

01:51But I would say we believe over a million people have gone home on their own.

01:55Since we have started this administration, yes.

02:00But we've arrested hundreds of thousands that have gone through our system.

02:04Yeah.