WASHINGTON (TNND) — A nearly $1 billion program to incentivize undocumented immigrants to voluntarily leave the country that has been a key piece of the Trump administration’s mass deportation push has resulted in 72,000 people departing the U.S.Project Homecoming, a Department of Homeland Security program that offers cash and promises of a chance to return to the U.S. later through legal pathways, was unveiled in 2025 after President Donald Trump returned to office in a move the White House said would encourage migrants without legal status to return to their home countries and save taxpayers money on deportation enforcement.CNN reported on Wednesday that an internal DHS document shows it has helped 72,000 immigrants depart the U.S. as of this month. A majority of the people who signed up were already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.The administration has said “tens of thousands” of people have used the program to self-deport but has not released detailed data on how many people have used it. The initiative offers stipends up to $2,600 and free flights for immigrants to return to their country of origin.The program initially offered immigrants a $1,000 stipend paid after confirmation through CBP Home, an app originally used to process asylum claims that has been repurposed under Trump to allow migrants to register for departure.It’s unclear how many used the CBP Home app for their departures.Administration officials have said the program is cheaper than traditional deportation methods, avoiding costs to arrest, detain and fly people out of the country on government-chartered planes. Deportations can be a costly endeavor for the federal government with massive expenditures for detaining people and coordinating travel. The U.S. can also run into roadblocks when countries refuse to accept their nationals.The program is part of a broader push after Trump returned to office vowing mass deportations of people in the country illegally and has secured around $170 billion in new funding from the GOP-controlled Congress to carry out the policies. Immigration enforcement agencies have conducted raids across the country in operations officials say are targeting the “worst of the worst,” focusing on people who have been charged with or convicted of committing violent crimes with a goal of deporting 1 million people a year.DHS has also said it deported more than 675,000 people since Trump returned to office in a January news release. Noem told Congress during testimony in March that figure was 700,000.The administration has claimed 2.5 million people living in the U.S. without legal status have left the country voluntarily since 2025, a figure some outside researchers say is significantly overstated. A January report by the Center for Migration Studies estimates the true number of self-deportations over the last year is around 200,000.While financial incentives for voluntary departures are new, the underlying process has been in place for decades. Noncitizens have been able to leave the country without the penalties of a removal order for years through a process known as voluntary departure. Around 35,000 immigration court cases have ended in voluntary departure for fiscal year 2025, up from 9,000 the prior fiscal year, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.“It certainly is a way to try to incentivize people to leave. What's unclear is if that's actually what's causing people to self-deport,” said Erin Corcoran, a professor at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. “How much of it is because people are interested in deporting themselves because there's money attached to it and there's a free flight, or is it because people are just afraid? I think that's still pretty unclear.”The Trump administration has been pushing for migrants to self-deport for months, boosting stipends available to people and spending millions on advertisements warning of legal consequences for those who refuse, including becoming ineligible to return to the U.S. through legal avenues.“Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return,” Noem said in a January statement.Analysts have also said immigrants may be hesitant to use the app and notify the federal government of their legal status and location. Users are asked for personal data, contact information and to take a photo of themselves for identification within the app.“They've used this information in the past, like with DACA people, to carry out and force deportations,” Corcoran said. “There's a legitimate reason why people are concerned about turning over their information — particularly where they live — to the federal government.”