Trump administration to Ukrainian migrants: “Take $1000 and go home!”

The Trump administration has devised plans to spend up to $250 million earmarked for foreign assistance to fund instead the removal and return of people from active conflict zones, including 700,000 Ukrainian and Haitian migrants who fled to the United States amid extreme, ongoing violence back home, according to draft internal documents reviewed by ‘The Washington Post’.

The proposal, which has not been previously reported, was in development before a related May 5 announcement from the Department of Homeland Security declaring that immigrants who volunteer to “self-deport” to their home countries would be eligible for $1,000 stipends from the U.S. government.

While prior administrations have supported using taxpayer funds for the voluntary repatriation of migrants, the proposal developed under President Donald Trump is unusual because it includes people who escaped from some of the most dangerous parts of the world and appears intended to bypass the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a U.N.-affiliated body that typically aids in returning migrants to their homes. It coincides also with the administration’s polarizing bid to drastically slash foreign aid, most notably by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and terminating 80 percent of its programs, including those that served Ukraine, Haiti and other troubled countries.

Under the Biden administration, both Ukrainians and Haitians had been granted what the U.S. government calls temporary protected status, which allows migrants to remain in the U.S. if they are unable to return to their home nation safely.

The documents reviewed by The Post say that more than 200,000 Ukrainians and 500,000 Haitians could be part of the voluntary removal process.

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