The United States on Monday sent 68 immigrants from Honduras and Colombia back to their countries, the first government-funded flight of what the Trump administration is calling voluntary deportations.
In the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, 38 Hondurans, including 19 children, disembarked from the charter flight carrying $1,000 debit cards from the US government and the offer to one day be allowed to apply for legal entry into the US.
US President Donald Trump has promised to increase deportations substantially.
Experts believe the self-deportation offer will only appeal to a small portion of migrants already considering return, but unlikely to spur high demand.
The offer has been paired with highly-publicized migrant detentions in the US and flying a couple hundred Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Kevin Antonio Posadas, from Tegucigalpa, had lived in Houston for three years, but had already been considering a return to Honduras when the Trump administration announced its offer.
Posadas said the process through the CBP Home app was easy.
Posadas said he hadn’t feared deportation and liked living in the US, but had been thinking for some time about going home.
He said eventually he would consider taking up the US government’s offer of allowing those who self-deport to apply to enter the United States legally.
Twenty-six more migrants aboard the flight were headed home to Colombia, according to a US Department of Homeland Security statement.
Honduras Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio García said the Honduran government would also support the returning migrants with $100 cash and another $200 credit at a government-run store that sells basic necessities.
Among the migrants arriving voluntarily Monday were four children who were born in the United States, García said.
García, who met the arriving migrants at the airport, said they told him that being in the US without documents required for legal immigration or residence had been increasingly difficult, that things were growing more hostile and they feared going to work.
According to Honduras immigration director Wilson Paz the number of Hondurans deported from the US so far this year is below last year’s pace.
He didn’t expect the number to accelerate much, despite the Trump administration’s intentions.
Some would continue applying to self-deport, because they feel like their time in the US is up or because it’s getting harder to work, he said.
"I don’t think it will be thousands of people who apply for the program,” Paz said.
He said it’s their responsibility so they "can support them in everything they need upon arrival to the country."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by HOOK Desk and is published from a syndicated feed AP.)
