Politics
More immigrants opt to self-deport rather than risk being marched out like criminals
Celeste traveled from Peru to the U.S. two decades ago, then a young woman of 19, and overstayed her tourist visa. She had studied graphic design back home but, unable to work in her field without papers, instead found arduous work cleaning hotel rooms and offices in Los Angeles. She built a life here, making friends and taking courses at a local community college. She paid her taxes annually, hoping she could one day gain legal status.
But years passed without the dramatic reforms needed to reshape and unclog the legal pathways to U.S. citizenship. And in the months since President Trump started his second term, her American dream has imploded. She’s unnerved by the news images of undocumented immigrants being loaded onto planes, shackled like violent criminals, and returned to their native countries. The thought of being ripped from her home, without time to pack up her belongings or say goodbye to friends, shakes her to the core.
So, Celeste has made a tough decision: She will continue cleaning offices and saving money for just a few more months, and return to Peru by year’s end.
Even with a plan to leave, she feels vulnerable and exposed. She now avoids restaurants, her favorite dance spots, even trail hikes. She’s stopped enrolling in online classes, she said, because she’s apprehensive about registering her name or address.
“The fear that they could grab you is always there,” said Celeste, who asked that The Times not use her full name for fear of making her a target for immigration authorities.
Trump came into his second term promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. During the campaign, he focused his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants who had committed violent crimes. But shortly after he took office, his administration made clear that they considered anyone in the country without authorization to be a criminal.
In the months since, the new administration has used a variety of tactics — explicit and subtle — to urge immigrants to depart the country of their own accord.
The day he was inaugurated, Trump disabled the CBP One mobile app that the Biden administration had utilized since 2023 to create a more orderly process of applying for asylum from the U.S.-Mexico border. Thousands of migrants camped at the border had their asylum appointments abruptly canceled.
Instead, the Trump administration launched a replacement app, CBP Home, that allows immigrants to notify the government of their intent to leave the country. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Times’ request for data regarding the number of people who have used the app.
Last month, the agency launched an ad campaign urging people in the country without authorization to leave immediately. “If you don’t, we will find you and we will deport you,” agency Secretary Kristi Noem says in the ad. This week, Trump told Fox Noticias he’s formulating a plan to give a stipend and an airplane ticket to immigrants in the country illegally who opt to “self-deport.”
The administration isn’t just targeting undocumented immigrants. In recent weeks, Homeland Security has messaged migrants who entered the country using the Biden-era CBP One app, telling them their temporary legal status has been terminated and they should leave “immediately.”
And then there are the images of the migrants deported to a notorious El Salvador prison, shackled one behind the other in prison garb, their heads bowed and shaven. The administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove the Venezuelan nationals without due process, alleging they were all gang members.
“One of the impacts of the various Trump policy measures is to strike terror and fear in immigrant communities,” said Kevin Johnson, a professor of public interest law at UC Davis School of Law. “It’s designed to show immigrants, ‘We’re out to get you.’”
Three months in, it’s difficult to estimate how many people are making the grueling decision to leave the lives and families built here under more lenient enforcement policies to return to home countries that many have not seen for decades.
But even in liberal-leaning California, where undocumented immigrants enjoy greater access to social services than in many regions of the U.S., advocates say they are fielding more questions from people who fear being plucked up and deported and are considering leaving on their own terms.
Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center in the Inland Empire, said her staff members talk “daily” with folks who are considering leaving. Pummeled by the “constant attacks” on immigrants, she said, people are posing logistical questions: Can they take their cars? What happens to their kids’ education?
“What comes up a lot in the sessions is, ‘Prefiero irme con algo, que irme sin nada,’” Gallegos said. “I’d rather leave with something than leave with nothing.”
To significantly reduce the country’s unauthorized immigrant population, currently estimated at about 11 million, the administration and Congress would need to make dramatic changes, experts say. Rounding up and packing off millions of people across the country would require a massive deployment of resources and far more detention capacity. The extensive backlog of immigration court cases — there were more than 3.6 million cases pending at the end of March, according to TRAC Reports — also stymies such efforts.
“Given the current level of resources and the current strategies, you can’t remove 11 million people from the country,” said Johnson. “They need some people to just leave.”
That’s where the notion of encouraging self-deportation comes in. Mitt Romney proposed the idea during the 2012 Republican primary, suggesting his administration would make it so hard for undocumented people to get jobs that they’d leave for a country where they could legally work.
At the time, his embrace of the concept was widely viewed as a reason he lost among Latino voters in the general election. But more than a decade later, the strategy has gained traction.
NumbersUSA, a grassroots organization focused on immigration reform, says on its website that encouraging people to return to their home countries is “key” to reducing the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Requiring employers to use E-Verify to prove their employees can legally work is the “number one” way to give people an incentive to leave, said NumbersUSA director of research Eric Ruark.
Elena, an unauthorized Mexican immigrant who has lived in the Inland Empire for nearly two decades, said she and her husband are among those who have decided to self-deport. They will move back to their homeland in the southern state of Chiapas by Christmas.
She was out shopping recently when a store employee told her she had seen an immigration agent nosing around the neighborhood. Don’t go out if you don’t have papers, the employee warned. A few months before, she was traveling along Interstate 8 near the southern border and passed an immigration checkpoint where she saw people detained and handcuffed.
“My heart hurt so badly,” said Elena, who also asked to be identified only by her first name because she fears coming to the attention of immigration authorities. “I saw workers and people traveling with their families, people who had made their lives here, and suddenly this happens and their dreams are destroyed.”
In recent years, the couple’s ability to work has been limited by age and illness. Elena, 54, has fibromyalgia and arthritis, and her husband, 62, has had a heart attack. Still, he has found work fixing cars and trucks; together they cater birthday parties and baby showers, providing large buffets of meat, rice, beans and salsas. In Chiapas, they have nearly five acres of land, where they hope to build a ranch, raise animals and grow crops.
“Many people have said that maybe I will feel more free there,” she said from the kitchen of her tidy home, “because here you feel chained up. You want to do many things, but you can’t.”
She has three adult children — two born in the U.S. — and two grandchildren in California. She chokes at the thought of being thousands of miles away.
“I think about my grandchildren, and I cry, I suffer,” she said. “I love them so much. Who is going to care for them like their grandmother?”
About 100 miles southeast, Maria, also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said that after 30 years in the Coachella Valley, she, too, plans to return to her home country and try to forge a new life in the western state of Michoacán. Like the other women interviewed for this article, she asked to be identified only by a first name.
She lives with a paralyzing fear of being hunted down and deported without a chance to ensure her affairs are in order. She is hesitant to go to church, hasn’t visited a doctor in months, and can’t run errands with any peace of mind. The anxiety has, quite literally, sent her packing. Over the years, she has supported herself by selling enchiladas and tacos from a small food stand. She plans to bring her cooking equipment back with her to Mexico in hopes of making a living there.
She will be leaving behind three daughters and six grandchildren, but reuniting with two sons in Mexico.
“It’s as if I’m being divided into two parts,” she said. “I haven’t been happy here, and I won’t be happy there.”
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
Politics
Trump talks with Putin, spars with South African leader, threatens EU tariff hike in 18th week in office
President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, hosted the president of South Africa at the White House and threatened more stringent tariffs against the European Union this week.
During South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Oval Office visit on Wednesday, Trump got into a testy exchange with the South African leader about the treatment of White farmers there. Specifically, Trump aired a video that showed white crosses that Trump said were approximately 1,000 burial sites of White Afrikaner South African farmers.
Trump has repeatedly asserted these farmers are being killed and pushed off of their land.
TRUMP TO MEET LEADER OF ‘OUT OF CONTROL’ SOUTH AFRICA AT WHITE HOUSE
President Donald Trump, right, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 21. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump told Ramaphosa at the White House that the burial sites by the side of the road are visited by those who want to “pay respects to their family member who was killed.”
“Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them,” Trump said. “They’re all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren’t driving, they are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed.”
“Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?” Ramaphosa said. “I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen.”
“I mean, it’s in South Africa, that’s where,” Trump said.
“We need to find out,” Ramaphosa said.
The White House defended showing the clip and said that the video was “substantiated,” following reports that emerged after the encounter that said the crosses were from a memorial demonstration following the murder of a White farming couple, not actual burial sites.
Here’s what also happened this week:
Call with Putin
Trump and Putin spoke over the phone on Monday to advance peace negotiations ending the war between Moscow and Kyiv. The call occurred just days after Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey to conduct their first peace talks since 2022.
After the call, Trump said both countries would move toward a ceasefire and push discussions to end the war. But, Trump indicated that the U.S. would let Moscow and Kyiv take the lead on negotiations after his call with Putin.
“The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social.
TRUMP SAYS HE COULD ‘WALK AWAY’ FROM RUSSIA-UKRAINE TALKS, CITES ‘TREMENDOUS HATRED’ ON BOTH SIDES
President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone on Monday to advance peace negotiations ending the war between Moscow and Kyiv. (Contributor/Getty Images; Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Fox News Digital)
Additionally, Trump has continued to distance the U.S. from the conflict this week, describing the conflict as a “European situation.”
“Big egos involved, but I think something’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll just back away and they’ll have to keep going. This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.”
Trump expressed similar sentiments on Wednesday when Ramaphosa visited and stated: “It’s not our people, it’s not our soldiers… it’s Ukraine and it’s Russia.”
‘Evils of antisemitism’
The White House condemned the fatal attack against two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, labeling that incident an act of antisemitism.
A gunman opened fire and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. The two were planning to get engaged next week in Jerusalem, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing.
Authorities arrested a pro-Palestinian man identified as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago in connection with the attack, according to officials.
In response, Trump and other leaders of his administration said attacks like these must stop and said that those responsible will face justice.
WHITE HOUSE DECRIES ‘EVILS OF ANTISEMITISM,’ VOWS JUSTICE AFTER FATAL SHOOTING OF ISRAELI EMBASSY STAFFERS
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location in this handout image released by the Embassy of Israel to the U.S. (Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via Reuters)
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless You ALL!”
Leavitt later told reporters she’d spoken with Attorney General Pam Bondi and that those who conducted the attack would face prosecution.
“The evil of antisemitism must be eradicated from our society,” Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “I spoke to the attorney general this morning. The Department of Justice will be prosecuting the perpetrator responsible for this to the fullest extent of the law. Hatred has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump.”
EU tariff threats
Trump threatened to slap a 50% tariff on imports from the European Union on Friday amid ongoing trade negotiations and after locking down a trade deal with the U.K.
The deal with the U.K. is the first historic trade negotiation signed following Liberation Day, when Trump announced widespread tariffs for multiple countries on April 2 at a range of rates.
The administration later adjusted its initial proposal and announced on April 9 it would immediately impose a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, while reducing reciprocal tariffs on other countries and the EU to a baseline of 10% for 90 days.
TRUMP SIGNALS CHINA ‘VERY MUCH’ INTERESTED IN SECURING TRADE DEAL AHEAD OF SWITZERLAND NEGOTIATIONS
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later said in an interview with Fox News he hoped the warning would “light a fire under the EU” and signaled Trump’s threats stemmed from frustration negotiating with European countries on trade deals. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday about the EU.
“Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later said in an interview with Fox News he hoped the warning would “light a fire under the EU” and signaled Trump’s threats stemmed from frustration negotiating with European countries on trade deals.
“EU proposals have not been of the same quality that we’ve seen from our other important trading partners,” Bessent said.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Politics
Health clinics that service immigrants are making house calls on patients too afraid to leave home
Across Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley, one community health center is extending its services to immigrant patients in their homes after realizing that people were skipping critical medical appointments because they’ve become too afraid to venture out.
St. John’s Community Health, one of the largest nonprofit community healthcare providers in Los Angeles County that caters to low-income and working-class residents, launched a home visitation program in March after learning that patients were missing routine and urgent care appointments because they feared being taken in by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
St. John’s, which offers services through a network of clinics and mobile units across the region, estimates that at least 25,000 of its patients are undocumented, and about a third of them suffer from chronic conditions, including diabetes and hypertension, which require routine checkups. But these patients were missing tests to monitor their blood sugar and blood pressure, as well as appointments to pick up prescription refills.
Earlier this year, the health center began surveying patients and found that hundreds were canceling appointments “solely due to fear of being apprehended by ICE.”
President Trump came into his second term promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, initially focusing his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants who had committed violent crimes. But shortly after he took office, his administration said they considered anyone in the country without authorization to be a criminal.
In the months since, the new administration has used a variety of tactics to sow fear in immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security has launched an ad campaign urging people in the country without authorization to leave or risk being rounded up and deported. Immigration agents are showing up at Home Depots and inside courtrooms, in search of people in the U.S. without authorization. Increasingly, immigrants who are detained are being whisked away and deported to their home countries — or, in some cases, nations where they have no ties — without time for packing or family goodbyes.
The Trump administration in January rescinded a policy that once shielded sensitive locations such as hospitals, churches and schools from immigration-related arrests.
In response to the survey results, St. John’s launched the Health Care Without Fear program in an effort to reach patients who are afraid to leave their homes. Jim Mangia, chief executive and president of St. John’s, said in a statement that healthcare providers should implement policies to ensure all patients, regardless of immigration status, have access to care.
“Healthcare is a human right — we will not allow fear to stand in the way of that,” he said.
Bukola Olusanya, a nurse practitioner and the regional medical director at St. John’s, said one woman reported not having left her home in three months. She said she knows of other patients with chronic conditions who aren’t leaving their house to exercise, which could exacerbate their illness. Even some immigrants in the U.S. legally are expressing reservations, given news stories about the government accusing people of crimes and deporting them without due process.
Olusanya said waiting for people to come back in for medical care on their own felt like too great a risk, given how quickly their conditions could deteriorate. “It could be a complication that’s going to make them get a disability that’s going to last a lifetime, and they become so much more dependent, or they have to use more resources,” she said. “So why not prevent that?”
On a recent Thursday at St. John’s Avalon Clinic in South L.A., Olusanya prepared to head to the home of a patient who lived about 30 minutes away. The Avalon Clinic serves a large population of homeless patients and has a street team that frequently uses a van filled with medical equipment. The van is proving useful for home visits.
Olusanya spent about 30 minutes preparing for the 3 p.m. appointment, assembling equipment to draw blood, collect a urine sample and check the patient’s vitals and glucose levels. She said she has conducted physical exams in bedrooms and living rooms, depending on the patient’s housing situation and privacy.
She recalled a similar drop in patient visits during Trump’s first administration when he also vowed mass deportations. Back then, she said, the staff at St. John’s held drills to prepare for potential federal raids, linking arms in a human chain to block the clinic entrance.
But this time around, she said, the fear is more palpable. “You feel it; it’s very thick,” she said.
While telehealth is an option for some patients, many need in-person care. St. John’s sends a team of three or four staff members to make the house calls, she said, and are generally welcomed with a mix of relief and gratitude that makes it worthwhile.
“They’re very happy like, ‘Oh, my God, St. John’s can do this. I’m so grateful,’ ” she said. “So it means a lot.”
Politics
Trump administration plans to overhaul National Security Council, weeks after Waltz’s departure
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are spearheading plans to overhaul the National Security Council and shift its main functions to other agencies like the State and Defense departments.
The move is the latest effort to slim down a federal agency and comes weeks after Trump announced former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would depart his post at the White House overseeing the agency.
Trump announced the same day that Waltz was nominated to serve as United Nations ambassador.
HEGSETH, SIGNAL QUESTIONS DOG WALTZ AS POTENTIALLY PERILOUS UN AMBASSADOR CONFIRMATION HEARINGS LOOM
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 7, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The plans to upend the agency would include whittling down the size of the National Security Council, which the Trump White House believes is full of long-term, bureaucratic staffers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda.
Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors.
Axios was the first to report the Trump administration’s restructuring plans. A White House official confirmed Axios’ reporting to Fox News Digital.
A White House official involved in the planning said Trump and Rubio are driving the change in an attempt to target Washington’s so-called “Deep State.”
“The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,” a White House official told Axios.
NEXT US NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR? HERE’S WHOM TRUMP MIGHT PICK TO REPLACE WALTZ
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as President Donald Trump, right, looks on during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2025. (Getty Images)
The National Security Council is located within the the White House and provides the president guidance on national security, military and foreign affairs matters.
Waltz’s departure from the agency followed his involvement with other administration officials, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in the Signal chat controversy over strike plans against the Houthis in March.
MIKE WALTZ, OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL STAFFERS OUT IN LATEST TRUMP PURGE FOLLOWING SIGNAL CHAT LEAK
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stand as President Donald Trump (not pictured) meets French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 24, 2025. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Since Waltz’s departure earlier this month, Rubio has taken on the role of national security advisor. That’s in addition to leading the State Department and serving as acting archivist and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration is aiming to dismantle this year.
Fox News Digital was the first to report that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. The move requires cutting thousands of staff members in an attempt to bolster the efficiency of the existing, “life-saving” foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo Fox News Digital obtained.
Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
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