This article first appeared at Propublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
She desperately wanted to get out of the country.
It was mid-May and Pérez, a Venezuelan mother of two, couldn’t survive on her own in Chicago anymore. She’d been relying on charity for food and shelter ever since her partner had been detained by immigration authorities after a traffic stop earlier in the year.
Pérez, 25, thought it’d be safer to return to Venezuela with her children than to stay in the U.S. Her request for asylum was still open and she had a permit to work legally, but so did a lot of other Venezuelans getting picked up on the streets and taken into custody. Authorities were detaining immigrants regardless of whether they’d followed the rules.
She had also seen how President Donald Trump singled out her countrymen, calling them gang members and terrorists, even sending hundreds to a foreign prison. She was terrified of getting detained, deported and, worst of all, separated from her young daughter and son. They were the reason the family had come to the U.S.
Then she heard about Trump’s offer of a safe and dignified way out.
“We are making it as easy as possible for illegal aliens to leave America,” the president said in a video on social media in May announcing the launch of Project Homecoming.
He spoke about a phone app where “illegals can book a free flight to any foreign country.” And he dangled other incentives: Eligible immigrants wouldn’t be barred from returning legally to the U.S. someday, and they’d even get a $1,000 “exit bonus.” Believing the president’s words, Pérez downloaded the CBP Home app and registered to return to Venezuela with her children.
Months passed. Her partner was deported. In July, Pérez said, she got a call from someone in the CBP Home program telling her she’d be on a flight out of the country in mid-August. She began packing.
But as the departure date neared and the plane tickets hadn’t arrived, Pérez got nervous. Again and again, she called the toll-free number she’d been given. Finally, somebody called back to say there might be a delay obtaining the documents she’d need to travel to Venezuela.
Then there was silence. No further information, no plane tickets. Pérez registered on the app again in August, then a third time in September, as immigration arrests ramped up in Chicago.
Today, Pérez feels trapped in a country that doesn’t want her. She’s afraid of leaving her apartment, afraid that she will be detained and that her children will be taken away from her. “I feel so scared, always looking around in every direction,” she said. “I was trying to leave voluntarily, like the president said.”
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is having the intended effect of terrifying people into trying to leave. There have been some 25,000 departures of immigrants from all countries via CBP Home, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data obtained by ProPublica.
The data indicates that of those 25,000 people, a little more than half of them returned home with DHS assistance; nearly all the others who left the U.S. ended up returning on their own.
And it’s not just CBP Home. Applications for voluntary departures — an alternative to deportation granted to some immigrants who leave at their own expense — have skyrocketed to levels not seen since at least 2000, reaching more than 34,000 since Trump’s second administration began, immigration court data shows. (The number is higher than in years past, but nowhere near the number of immigrants the administration has deported this year.)
But for many recent arrivals from Venezuela — arguably the community most targeted by the Trump administration, and whose country is now bracing for the possibility of a U.S. invasion — leaving has not been as simple as the president has made it sound.
ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen Venezuelans who said they wanted to take the U.S. government’s offer of a safe and easy return. They signed up months ago on the CBP Home app and were given departure dates. But after those dates came and went, these immigrants said they feel betrayed by what the president told them.
Part of the problem is tied to the lack of diplomatic relations between Washington and Caracas. There are no consular services for Venezuelans in the U.S. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who migrated to the U.S. in recent years seeking asylum or other humanitarian relief entered without valid passports, as Pérez did. But to get on a plane for Venezuela, they’re being told they’ll need a special travel document known as a “salvoconducto,” or “safe passage,” from their government.
And relations between the two countries are getting worse. The Trump administration has pushed for regime change in Venezuela, sent warships to the Caribbean and, in recent weeks, blew up four Venezuelan boats it claimed were transporting drugs to the U.S. Bracing for an invasion, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has said he’s ready to declare a state of emergency to protect his country, which could make it harder for Venezuelans abroad to return home.
The Venezuelans who want to leave the U.S. described how CBP Home representatives told them that their lack of passports wouldn’t be a problem and that the U.S. government would help them obtain the travel documents they needed. Now they are being told that they’re on their own — if they get any response at all.
The Trump administration was aware of the potential challenges from the start. In his May proclamation, the president directed the State and Homeland Security departments to “take all appropriate actions to enable the rapid departure of illegal aliens from the United States who currently lack a valid travel document from their countries of citizenship or nationality.”
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency is working with the State Department “to acquire travel documents for those who lack safe passage. So far thousands of Venezuelans have already self-departed using CBP Home.” The State Department referred questions to DHS.
The internal DHS records obtained by ProPublica show nearly 3,700 departures of Venezuelans via CBP Home through late September. It’s unclear how many Venezuelans have applied. The DHS spokesperson said the agency could not confirm the numbers and would not say whether the program is meeting projections. (A congressional committee has directed DHS to include information about CBP Home departures in monthly reports the agency previously published, but has not published in this administration.)
An estimated 10,200 Venezuelans were deported between February and early October, according to deportation flight data tracked by the nonprofit Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor.
Many of the Venezuelans interviewed by ProPublica are mothers of young children who say they decided to take the president’s offer after their work permits expired, their temporary protected status was canceled or their spouses were deported. Few are willing to return by land because of the dangers posed by cartel violence and kidnappings in Mexico — dangers many of them experienced when they migrated here.
Nearly all of them, like Pérez, asked not to be identified by their full names because they’re afraid of bringing unwanted attention to themselves and of the potential consequences of such attention. Interviews with Venezuelan immigrants were conducted in Spanish.
Before their departure dates came and went, they had made preparations to leave — turning over the keys to their apartments, pulling their children from school, shipping their belongings to Venezuela. And they have sunk deeper into poverty as the weeks and months pass.
In Los Angeles, a family of four slept in their tiny Toyota Echo for weeks to save on rent as they waited for their departure date. They sold the car and other belongings to pay for bus tickets back the way they’d come. Nearly two months after their return to Venezuela, they said they’re still waiting for the exit bonuses they’d hoped would help them start over.
In Youngstown, Pennsylvania, a mother of two said she didn’t enroll her 8-year-old son in school this fall because she assumed they would be gone by now. She recently moved into a friend’s apartment in New York City and plans to turn herself in to immigration authorities and ask to be deported.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” the woman said, between sobs. “What am I supposed to do?”
Several immigration attorneys and advocates told ProPublica that they don’t trust the CBP Home app or the Trump administration’s promises to help immigrants self-deport. The National Immigration Law Center recently published a guide explaining some of the potential risks of using the app, such as leaving the country without closing an immigration court case and becoming ineligible for a future visa. Some lawyers said they discourage clients from using the app at all.
Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, a nonprofit in El Paso that supports migrants and refugees, said in the current climate, he understands why some people might consider the administration’s offer to leave. But, he said, the offer has to be backed by action.
“If you’re going to say you’re going to do this,” Garcia added, “then you damn well better make sure that it’s truthful and that it works.”
CBP Home replaced an earlier app that the Biden administration had promoted to try to bring order to the soaring numbers of migrants attempting to enter the country. Pérez and other asylum-seekers used that earlier version, CBP One, to make appointments to approach the border. Trump, who campaigned on the promise of mass deportations, ended that option on his first day back in the White House.
In March, he reintroduced the app with the new name and function, allowing immigrants to alert the government of their intention to self-deport. It was part of a $200 million advertising blitz meant to encourage immigrants to “Stay Out and Leave Now.” Two months later, Trump unveiled Project Homecoming and the added incentives of free flights and exit payments. The administration moved State Department funds meant to aid refugees resettling in the U.S. to DHS to help pay for the flights and stipends, according to federal records and newsreports.
DHS officials have mentioned the app in dozens of press releases about policy changes and enforcement operations. For example, in the September announcement that DHS was ending temporary protected status for Venezuelans, officials also encouraged Venezuelans to leave via CBP Home. And immigrants who show up for their hearings at immigration court see posters taped on the walls about the benefits they could get if they “self-deport using CBP Home instead of being deported by ICE.”
Emily and Deybis downloaded the app in June, when it seemed as if their life in the U.S. was collapsing. They said they used the earlier CBP One app to approach the border with their two children in January 2024 and were allowed into the country with protections that were supposed to last two years. They settled in Dallas, applied for asylum and got work permits; Deybis found a job in a hotel laundry and Emily at a Chick-fil-A. Then, this spring, the Trump administration ended protections for immigrants like them and canceled their work permits.
They lost their jobs and could no longer afford their rent. On the app’s sky-blue home screen, they saw a drawing of a smiling man and woman holding hands with a child. “Let us help you easily leave the country,” another screen told them in Spanish. They agreed to share their phone’s geolocation, entered personal information and uploaded selfies.
They received an automated email from “Project Homecoming Support” explaining that they would be contacted soon by someone from a toll-free number who would help coordinate their travel. Within weeks, they got a call from an operator at that number who said she worked on behalf of DHS.
Emily said she made clear the family didn’t have Venezuelan passports but was told that wouldn’t be a problem; the U.S. government would procure any necessary documents for them. They said the operator gave them an Aug. 1 departure date and told them to expect their plane tickets by email.
Emily and Deybis sold their car and moved with their children to Columbus, Ohio, where Deybis’ nephew let them stay in his unfinished basement apartment until their departure. The plane tickets never came.
Then the nephew was detained in a traffic stop and deported. Panicked, Emily and Deybis said they called the toll-free number again and again, leaving messages that went unanswered. Emily submitted a new application and sent more emails.
In mid-September, they got an email from the “CBP Home team” telling them to contact the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico to get travel documents on their own.
“We are working very hard on your case,” the email assured.
When they called the embassy, though, the number was busy. They found travel agencies that offer to procure travel documents at a cost but said they were told the Venezuelan government requires an arrival date and proof that plane tickets have been purchased. Emily and Deybis can’t afford them.
“Thank you so much for your patience and we understand your frustration,” they heard back in another email. “Wait for new instructions from DHS.”
As they wait, they worry about how they’ll survive when winter comes. Most days, Deybis visits local food pantries and looks for discarded items in alleys and on street corners that they can resell. A few weeks ago, they sold their daughter’s bed to help pay the rent.
“We’d rather be in Venezuela with our family than suffer here,” he said.
Pérez said her daughter was the family’s main motivation to come; the girl had been born with a heart defect and needed surgery they could not find in Venezuela, where hospitals operate through power outages and have limited capacity for advanced surgeries, not to mention supplies.
“We didn’t come for the American dream, or for a house, or for some life of luxury,” said Pérez. “What we wanted is for our daughter to live.”
She and her partner made the trek to the U.S. in 2023, with her daughter, then 6, and their 4-year-old son. Pérez thought they did it “the right away” by waiting in Mexico for weeks until they got an appointment to approach the border via CBP One. After they were processed, the family headed to Chicago, a city they had heard was a sanctuary for immigrants. At first they took shelter inside a police station, as hundreds of new immigrant families were doing at the time. Pérez said medical workers who visited the station learned about her daughter’s condition and connected the family to a hospital charity care program. The following spring, the frail little girl with dark brown eyes got the operation she needed.
In late 2024, the family moved to South Florida, where Pérez’s partner found work rebuilding homes damaged by hurricanes. Then in February, he was arrested for driving without a license or registration. He spent about two months in jail before he was transferred into immigration custody.
Pérez didn’t feel safe in Florida anymore. She returned to Chicago with her children.
But as the months pass without an answer from the CBP Home program, Chicago doesn’t feel safe, either. This fall, the Trump administration zeroed in on the city for immigration enforcement, sending in the U.S. Border Patrol. Pérez recently downloaded another app that tells her whether there’ve been sightings of federal immigration agents nearby, and she watches videos of other immigrants getting arrested. One day in September, a federal agent shot and killed an immigrant in a nearby suburb. Pérez wonders if she might die, too.
On a sunny September afternoon, Pérez peered down the street outside her children’s school, scanning for suspicious vehicles. Her daughter, who is now 8, bounded down the steps first, wearing a pink bow and a broad smile. Her son, now 6, in a Spiderman shirt and a blue cast from a playground accident, appeared next.
They share their mother’s anxiety. On their walk home, Pérez’s daughter leaned over her brother and chided him for speaking Spanish in public. The girl said her teacher had warned her that federal agents might be listening.
It reminded Perez that she now needs to leave the U.S. for the same reason she came: her children. She plans to register yet again on the CBP Home app.
Jeff Ernsthausen contributed data analysis.