Only six illegal immigrants come ahead to respect the ‘self deportation’ program in the United States

Only six illegal immigrants volunteered to go out of the United States of their own in the first week of a pilot program that invited more than half-million people to self-deport, federal officials said.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement program in San Diego, Virginia said that these six people who signed by Wednesday morning included a Estonian in Phoenix, a married couple of India, a Guatemalan in Chicago, a Salvadoran in Charlotte, N.C. and a Mexican from San Diego.

Under this program, all the participants who have signed up the documents will get three months time so that they can wrap up their personal affairs and peace of mind. During this period of three months, agents will not raid their homes and they will not be disturbed by anyone. Officials said that this method is less disruptive than arrests and jailing by the immigration officials who track these fugitives at homes or at workplaces.

All the 450,000 immigrants who are living illegally in the country and have ignored court orders previously are eligible for the program, provided they do not have criminal records. The programs can be availed by the illegal immigrants in five cities, namely; Santa Ana, California, San Diego, Phoenix, and Charlotte, N.C.

Critics have snickered at this idea as they believe that this will not have any positive outcome. The ICE said that once this program ends on August 22, it will be evaluated and then they will decide if it has any future or not.

Jennifer Allen, executive director of the Tucson-based immigrant rights group Border Action Network said that she feels that the success of this program is there to speak for itself. Its utility and relevance can be determined by the number of immigrants that have volunteered, she said. She added that these people have taken numerous risks and made many sacrifices to be here, so there is no way they will even think of leaving just because the ICE says them to leave.