Coyotes profit from self-deportation “packages” as enforcement ramps up under President Trump
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A growing number of illegal migrants are paying human smugglers, or “coyotes,” to help them leave the United States voluntarily in order to avoid the long-term legal penalties associated with formal deportation, according to witnesses and immigration experts.
“I’ve been a journalist for more than 25 years, but I never thought I would see this — ‘paquetes de retorno,’” said Alfredo Corchado, an American journalist and executive editor at the Puente News Collaborative, speaking on March 26 at the Council on Foreign Relations. Corchado told attendees that coyotes are “now offering packages where [migrant] people can go back home.” He described a new market in which migrants are paying smugglers to reach destinations such as Costa Rica or to return to countries like Honduras or Guatemala — but on their own terms.
The strategy is driven by fear of detention, family separation, and the 10-year ban that typically follows a formal U.S. government deportation. Migrants also risk losing bank access, personal possessions, and any legal pathway back to the United States.
Jeff Lamour, a Haitian-American businessman in Albertville, Alabama, said that Haitians in particular are engaging in “self-deportation” to avoid immediate returns to the Caribbean nation. “They don’t want the worst thing,” Lamour said in an interview with Breitbart News, “because [the government] does send them back to Haiti immediately.”
The informal return industry is reportedly thriving. “This [self-deporting] industry with the coyotes, it has become a multi-million dollar industry over here now,” Lamour added. “You got those guys that are going from Indiana, from Alabama, in those vans where they’re smuggling people to New Mexico, to border states. They’re making a ton of money.”
Lamour said smugglers charge $10,000 per person, funded by migrants who’ve saved money while working jobs that Americans previously held. “A lot of people are going back to Chile,” he said, referencing a report that highlighted Haitian migrants leaving the U.S. for South America.
Lamour said some migrants are selling their vehicles to avoid detection. “I had guys selling their car for $500 just so they won’t be deported,” he said. In one instance, he recalled a man whose wife and children died in the Darien Gap while en route from Brazil to the U.S., and who later relied on a Catholic charity to cross the final stretch into the country.
Even with the trend increasing, the overall numbers remain relatively small compared to the estimated 18 million illegal migrants living in the U.S. today. Roughly 9 million of them arrived after President Joe Biden took office.
The New York Times also acknowledged the emerging pattern. One migrant named Cristian reportedly scheduled a voluntary departure hearing, calculating that it would be easier to return in the future. A family in Chicago also returned to Mexico, while workers have disappeared from Springfield, Ohio and other towns.
Southbound traffic is declining in places like the Darien Gap, according to Caleb Vitello, a senior official in Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Speaking at the CFR, Vitello said that migrants “aren’t risking that walk or that dangerous journey through there.”
This voluntary exodus is a growing concern for corporate interests that rely on immigration to maintain consumer demand, labor supply, and rental occupancy. “The only way that we continue to grow economically is actually by increasing our levels of immigration,” said Andrea Flores, vice president of lobbying at FWD.us, during the CFR event. Flores advocated for greater federal support to help migrants assimilate in smaller towns and rural communities.
However, Vice President J.D. Vance offered a contrasting view at a March investor summit. “The promise of cheap labor is a drug that too many American firms got addicted to,” Vance told the audience, arguing that real innovation should “dignify our workers” and improve productivity rather than rely on low-cost labor.
Even some globalists have acknowledged shifts in thinking. BlackRock founder Larry Fink said at a 2024 World Economic Forum event that countries with shrinking populations could actually benefit by investing in automation and AI instead of importing labor. Fink continued that rising productivity might allow countries to elevate standards of living even without population growth.
Meanwhile, Trump’s immigration crackdown continues to alter the calculations of those who entered during the Biden administration. “The enforcement climate since Trump took office has changed Cristian’s calculus ‘360 degrees,’” wrote the Times. As more migrants opt to exit rather than face deportation, a new underground pipeline is reversing the direction of border smuggling — this time, out of the United States.
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