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Reporting Highlights
- Stoking Fear: The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has left many immigrants afraid of being detained and deported. Some have opted to leave the U.S. on their own.
- Broken Promises: The administration has promoted an app to help immigrants leave the U.S. and promised to pay for flights and give them $1,000. Some haven’t gotten what was promised.
- Unwanted: Many immigrants, particularly those from Venezuela, say they feel stuck. They’re unwanted in the U.S. and afraid to return to their homeland.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
She desperately wanted to get out of the country.
It was mid-May and Pérez, a Venezuelan mother of two, couldn’t survive on her own in Chicago anymore. She’d been relying on charity for food and shelter ever since her partner had been detained by immigration authorities after a traffic stop earlier in the year.
Pérez, 25, thought it’d be safer to return to Venezuela with her children than to stay in the U.S. Her request for asylum was still open and she had a permit to work legally, but so did a lot of other Venezuelans getting picked up on the streets and taken into custody. Authorities were detaining immigrants regardless of whether they’d followed the rules.
She had also seen how President Donald Trump singled out her countrymen, calling them gang members and terrorists, even sending hundreds to a foreign prison. She was terrified of getting detained, deported and, worst of all, separated from her young daughter and son. They were the reason the family had come to the U.S.
Then she heard about Trump’s offer of a safe and dignified way out.
“We are making it as easy as possible for illegal aliens to leave America,” the president said in a video on social media in May announcing the launch of Project Homecoming.
He spoke about a phone app where “illegals can book a free flight to any foreign country.” And he dangled other incentives: Eligible immigrants wouldn’t be barred from returning legally to the U.S. someday, and they’d even get a $1,000 “exit bonus.” Believing the president’s words, Pérez downloaded the CBP Home app and registered to return to Venezuela with her children.
Months passed. Her partner was deported. In July, Pérez said, she got a call from someone in the CBP Home program telling her she’d be on a flight out of the country in mid-August. She began packing.
But as the departure date neared and the plane tickets hadn’t arrived, Pérez got nervous. Again and again, she called the toll-free number she’d been given. Finally, somebody called back to say there might be a delay obtaining the documents she’d need to travel to Venezuela.