“Designed to Scare People”: Lawyers Warn of Self-Deportation Notices Posted in Immigration Courts

Immigrants assemble for their court dates. Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx/AP

On April 28, lawyer Paul O’Dwyer opened his email inbox to find some good news. A New York City immigration judge had approved the asylum application for one of his clients. But the immigration court email also contained an attachment O’Dwyer hadn’t seen before: a Justice Department notice encouraging immigrants to self-deport.

O’Dwyer was confused. If an immigration judge had just granted his client protection from deportation, why would they send out such a flyer? “It was bizarre,” he said, “and I was surprised to see it simply because it came with an order approving the asylum application. On that front, it just didn’t make sense.”

Titled “Message to Illegal Aliens: A Warning to Self-Deport,” the message is also available in Spanish and lists the supposed benefits of self-deportation and the consequences of being removed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The first category includes the ability to “leave on your own terms” and keep any money earned in the United States, as well as the possibility of a flight subsidized by the US government. The alternative, the notice warns, could result in “immediate deportation,” daily fines of close to $1,000, and potential jail time.

“It’s troubling to see that the immigration court is injecting itself into the actual removal process and taking a position on that,” O’Dwyer said.

The warning appears to be part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to boost its deportation numbers by making immigrants voluntarily leave, while aiming to discourage future migration to the United States. “Leave now,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign. “If you don’t, we will find you and we will deport you. You will never return.”

The notice assures immigrants that it’s “safe” to self-deport using the CBP Home mobile application, which the Trump administration launched in March. “People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way,” President Donald Trump said in an official White House video publicizing the app, “or they can get deported the hard way—and that’s not pleasant.” The administration is also offering a $1,000 stipend and travel assistance to incentivize immigrants to use the CBP Home self-deportation feature.

Alarmed by what he described as the notice’s “inflammatory language,” O’Dwyer shared a copy with a group of fellow immigration attorneys. He wasn’t alone in noticing this troubling new trend. Immigration lawyers across the United States—including in Chicago, Cleveland, and San Antonio—have observed this notice to self-deport posted on the walls of immigration courts where they practice or are receiving it as part of communications related to their cases. One attorney in Colorado reported getting it with the denial of an appeal from one of her clients issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which reviews the decisions of immigration judges.

Many lawyers have called the warning misleading and essentially a trap, particularly for immigrants without legal representation. One lawyer in New York said it “reads more like a scare tactic than informed legal guidance.” Kansas City-based Yanky Perelmuter saw the notice inside the courtroom, laid out on a table with other informational pamphlets about how immigrants can report a change of address or find counsel. “You’re offering legal advice,” he said. “They’re saying there’s a benefit to self-deport, but without explaining what are the disadvantages of self-deporting.” It “looks like the judge is endorsing this,” Perelmuter added.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department’s branch running the US immigration courts, was asked about the notice to self-deport and declined to comment.

Denver-based attorney Lisa Guerra recently received the notice alongside information about hearings in the cases of two asylum seekers she’s representing. She also saw it posted on the Denver immigration court’s bulletin board. For one, Guerra explained, the blanket notice makes no distinction between immigrants with final orders of deportation and those who may be eligible for some form of relief such as asylum or cancellation of removal. It also doesn’t mention the right to appeal an immigration judge’s deportation order.

As a result, unrepresented immigrants with legitimate claims to stay in the United States might be induced to abandon their cases fearing immediate deportation or the threat of financial penalties. “It’s mostly focused on just getting them to leave and not anything on finishing their process here in the United States,” Guerra said. “I guess that goes with the theme, right? They don’t really think they’re entitled to due process.”

Guerra and other lawyers who have seen or received the self-deportation notice have also pointed out that it gives a false impression about the lack of consequences of departing in a “dignified way.” Traditionally, an immigrant looking to leave the United States of their own accord in order to avoid a final order of deportation—and potentially be exempt from bans on re-entering the country—might petition an immigration judge for a grant of voluntary departure, for which they have to meet certain eligibility requirements and, in some cases, waive any existing applications for relief and pay a bond. (Even a grant of voluntary departure might not protect someone from being barred from returning to the United States for several years after leaving.)

Taking the government’s offer as presented on the Justice Department’s notice, several lawyers fear, could backfire. If an immigrant leaves the United States while in removal proceedings and fails to show up in court, that could trigger a deportation order in absentia from an immigration judge, which in turn carries harsher long-term consequences such as bars on eligibility for several forms of immigration benefits.

“I don’t think individuals [representing themselves] would know enough to say, ‘I need to let the court know that I would like to leave on my own accord so that there’s a record of that in my immigration court record,’” Guerra said.

The concept of self-deportation is hardly a new one, Dina Francesca Haynes, executive director of the Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights, pointed out, and successful lawsuits have been brought to challenge the practice of Department of Homeland Security agents allegedly coercing immigrants into signing their own removals. But now, she said, “this is a whole app and flyer with a QR code and seemingly posted in courts all over the country.”

Haynes is skeptical that immigrants will turn to the government’s CBP Home app in light of the atmosphere of distrust created by the administration’s immigration enforcement policies. “A lot of this is designed to scare people,” she said, “and it’s unfortunately very effective.”

O’Dwyer shares that sentiment. “I don’t know necessarily that a lot of people are then going to go home and pack their bags and leave the country when they get this,” O’Dwyer said of the notice. “But it certainly is going to discourage people from attending any future immigration appointments.”