If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest, and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest.
Kristi Noem
The Public Record
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration; formerly Governor of South Dakota (2019–2025).
self-deportations are the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest.
If you are here illegally, we will find you and we will deport you. You will never return. But if you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return.
This is the president's decision and the White House's decision, so we follow his direction and his legal scholars and attorneys.
[Abrego Garcia] is not under our control. He is an El Salvador citizen. He is home there in his country.
If he were to be brought back to the United States of America, we would immediately deport him again.
We've been doing this correctly. We've been building cases. We've been going after the worst of the worst and doing it the right way.
Obviously, we're relying on the expertise of our investigators, our teams, double-checking, triple-checking...