Love is in the air — and Customs and Border Protection is hoping illegal migrants will fall for it.
The agency posted a cheeky Valentine’s Day message urging illegal migrants to take advantage of a Trump Administration program to “self deport.”
“Don’t wait, self deport today and spend this Valentines Day with the one you love,” the agency wrote in a message posted Saturday morning on X.
“We will even give you $2,600 to take them out,” the agency wrote in an official post retweeted by CBP Chief Michael Banks.
An accompanying video showed slow-mo images of the culmination of the deportation process, set to Elvis Presley’s torch song “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
The King sings the lyrics: “Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?” while the video shows military transport aircraft, buses hauling migrants, and a handcuffed deportee being escorted by camouflaged agents to his flight home.
“Spend Valentine’s Day with a Loved One. Self Deport today,” concludes a message at the end, written in a Valentine’s Day font fit for a card meant for a special friend.
The post had nearly 400,000 views by Saturday afternoon, and referenced a program to persuade people here illegally to accept cash and a free flight — rather than evading enforcement to avoid a costly cat-and-mouse game.
The agency’s light-hearted take comes after CBP suffered a PR nightmare over the killing of Veterans’ Affairs nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by two of its officers in Minneapolis. The shooting sparked further street protests and a political blow-up in Washington, where a clash over enforcement contributed to a government shutdown that began Saturday.
Border Patrol officer Greg Bovino, who was overseeing the deployment, went back to California in the aftermath. Border czar Tom Homan, who replaced him, announced last week that the two month immigration enforcement surge was ending.
The ad targets migrants living in the US illegally who may have left family back home. The numbers are difficult to quantify, but the ties are revealed by the billions in remittances they send home each year.