During President Donald Trump‘s second public meeting with his Cabinet at the White House on Thursday, he said there will soon be a deadline by which illegal immigrants must be gone from the U.S., or they will not be allowed to try to reenter legally.
The president’s comments came as he expressed a willingness to work with undocumented immigrants “right from the beginning” to help them return to the country legally — that is, if they leave “in a nice way,” the president added.
“We’re going to work with people, so that if they go out in a nice way, and go back to their country, we’re going to work with them right from the beginning on trying to get them back in legally,” Trump said following comments from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
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“So it gives you real incentive, otherwise they’ll never come back — they’ll never be allowed once a certain period of time goes by, which is probably going to be 60 days.”
The Trump administration is currently undergoing a massive voluntary removal effort, with federal officials encouraging immigrants residing illegally in the U.S. to self-deport through the administration’s CBP Home app. More than 5,000 immigrants self-deported over the last month, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data.
“It’s a very big self-deport operation that we’re starting,” Noem said during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.
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Noem pointed out that currently, under the Alien Registration Act and the president’s Executive Orders, if undocumented immigrants still have not registered their status with the federal government, they can be criminally charged, face fines of up to $1,000 per day “and they’ll never get the chance to come back to America.”
She also added that the agency is working on securing the funding and resources to ensure deported immigrants land on their feet when they return to their home country, pointing to programs in places like Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia that are offering food and housing assistance.
“[We are] making sure that these folks have the opportunity to go home, so that they can get the chance to come back to America is important,” Noem told Trump and his Cabinet.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
