When tips started coming on Oct. 2, warning that the Trump administration was planning to offer financial incentives for unaccompanied immigrant children as young as 14 to self-deport, hundreds of immigration lawyers and advocates gathered on a call.
Their aim was to figure out how to protect vulnerable children from "Freaky Friday" — a rumored U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mission set for Oct. 3. Named for a popular kids’ film, the operation would present children in the U.S. illegally with the option to voluntarily return to their home countries, rather than pursuing asylum or other forms of relief, even though many such children are fleeing abuse, trafficking or violence, advocates told Raw Story.
“The first time I heard it, I was like ‘This has to be a joke,’” said Ala Amoachi, an immigration attorney in East Islip, N.Y., who has represented hundreds of unaccompanied alien children (UACs).
But then she got word from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which said information about the mission “was coming from credible sources and that they are not rumors.”
Another immigration advocate who declined to be named due to fear of retaliation said they learned about “Freaky Friday” from a government whistleblower.
On the morning of Oct. 3, Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and adjunct Emory University law professor, posted a message on X.
“There is a darkness and evil that is taking over ICE, led by the dark lord Miller,” Kuck wrote, referencing Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff.
“ICE is launching a nationwide operation today … reportedly named ‘Freaky Friday’ that will target unaccompanied children aged 14 and older of all nationalities.”
Kuck described details of the plan, from a “really reliable source.”
Unaccompanied children would receive a “threat” letter from ICE when they turned 18 if they didn’t waive their applications for relief under laws like the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, Kuck wrote.
They would be offered $2,500 to return to their home countries. Otherwise, any family members in the U.S. would face threat of arrest, Kuck posted.
An Oct. 3 email shared with Raw Story confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) planned to offer a one-time resettlement stipend up to $2,500 to UACs aged 14 and older, in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who wanted to self-deport.
DHS answered Kuck with an X post of its own, denying the “Freaky Friday” mission name but confirming a “voluntary” self-deportation payment.
“CHUCK KUCK IS WRONG!” the post said. (In fact, Kuck’s name is pronounced “Cook.”)
“The anti-ICE activists have made up a ridiculous term, ‘Freaky Friday,’ to instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement,” the government post said.
The post also said cartels “trafficked countless unaccompanied children into the United States during the Biden Administration.”
It said DHS and HHS, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement cares for unaccompanied children without a U.S. legal guardian, were “working diligently to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those children.”
“Many of these UACs had no choice when they were dangerously smuggled into this country,” the post said.
“ICE and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement at HHS are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families. This voluntary option gives UACs a choice and allows them to make an informed decision about their future. Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin. Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option.”
In response to a series of questions, an ICE spokesperson sent the same statement to Raw Story.
‘Threaten the lives of children’
Speaking to Raw Story, Kuck did not name the source that tipped him off to the “Freaky Friday" mission but said “there's no doubt that was the name. That is a typical DHS name under Trump.”
ICE has launched enforcement missions including Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago and Operation Tidal Wave in Florida. DHS has given immigration detention facilities alliterative names, including Alligator Alcatraz, Speedway Slammer and Cornhusker Clink.
Kuck called DHS’s response to his post “hilarious.”
“‘Chuck Kuck is wrong’ and yet in the very same tweet they admitted I was right. They didn't like the name — you know, they didn't object to Stephen Miller being called the dark lord, so that must still be true.”
Also on Oct. 3, the National Immigrant Justice Center and Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights released a statement about a widely circulated email that referenced “Freaky Friday” and the program targeting unaccompanied children 14 to 18 years old but with the potential to affect children as young as 10.
“I think somebody needed to shine a spotlight on this,” Kuck said.
An ICE official said the self-deportation stipend is first being offered to 17-year-old UACs. It is currently unclear if the program will eventually extend to UACs 14 or younger.
The immigration advocate who requested anonymity said: “By the time that we got to Friday, it was like, ‘Okay, did they change their mind? Did they reverse course? Was this just like a stunt? Are they leaking this information to catch the leakers?”
‘Trauma upon trauma’
While he couldn’t attend due to travel, Kuck said the Oct. 2 call mobilizing immigration attorneys was “a reaction to a program that comes out of nowhere with no warning, that would literally potentially threaten the lives of children.”
“That's insane. That's literally what we're what we've reduced ourselves to in the immigration enforcement sphere? That’s sad.”
The immigration advocate who spoke anonymously said lawyers were “going out of their ways to officially enter into representation with the kids” in case UACs were going to be moved from care facilities run by HHS. That way, “the government wouldn't be able to say, ‘Oh, we didn't know that this kid didn't have a lawyer or something like that.’”
The advocate also said that on Labor Day weekend, in early September, the administration attempted to send more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children to their home country.
“We're getting calls from the government saying, ‘Wake up the kids … they're being deported, and tell them to pack two lunches,’” the advocate said.
Within 30 minutes, government contractors showed up at shelters in Texas and Arizona, the advocate said. Children were boarded on planes and one started taxiing before a judge ordered an emergency halt at 4 a.m on the Sunday.
“That's one of the reasons why people were so alarmed and also so ready to take action [on Oct. 3],” the advocate said. “The government tried to disappear kids in the middle of the night when they thought no one was watching during a holiday weekend, and then now we hear that they're gonna call this Operation Freaky Friday and start targeting unaccompanied kids in this other way?
“It shows a pattern of this administration going after unaccompanied kids.”
UACs at U.S. government facilities are “the most vulnerable" of unaccompanied minors as they typically don’t have legal representation, Kuck said.
“Generally, if a child came across the border, it wasn't because they thought it was a really great idea,” Kuck said.
“My God, this is who we should be protecting, not offering money so they'll go back to what could potentially be a life-threatening situation in their home country.”
Amoachi pushed back on the idea that the self-deportation stipend is “voluntary.”
“They have all these special vulnerabilities,” Amoachi said. “They are minors, and even if they're not, they're vulnerable because they often experienced abuse: sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and they're scared. They're scared for their families. They're very traumatized right now with everything that's going on.”
Amoachi detailed “really horrifying situations” clients have faced. One 14-year-old “gave herself up to be a victim instead” when a human smuggler was going to rape her sister, she said.
Kuck said he represented a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim who was sexually abused when she arrived in the U.S.
The advocate who spoke anonymously was appalled by the idea of a child making a “life-or-death decision without a trusted adult.”
“A lot of these kids are leaving countries with high amounts of cartel violence, and so a masked man shows up at your house and says, ‘We'll give you X amount of money to carry this across the border, or join our gang,' or whatever, and they're putting you in a life or death situation, and then you come to the United States, and then there's another masked man coming to you, saying, ‘You have to make this decision right now.’ It's just trauma upon trauma.”
Amoachi said she had spoken with kindergarten-aged UACs who had seen classmates killed for not joining gangs in places like El Salvador. One 5-year-old was abandoned after his mother killed herself, having been in a forced relationship with a gang member, Amoachi said.
“What low have we reached in this country when we're going after unaccompanied minors?” Amoachi said.
‘It's just counter-humanitarian to do these things, particularly because a lot of UACs, they're coming to the U.S. usually to reunite with one or both of their parents, and they're often coming from situations where they were physically abused or psychologically abused or exposed to sexual abuse or gang violence.”
‘Done for show’
Unaccompanied, undocumented minors may qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a form of immigration relief for children abused, neglected or abandoned by one or both of their parents.
Two of Amoachi’s clients were deported to El Salvador this year despite pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases. They suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a result of detention and deportation, Raw Story reported.
Nicole Whitaker, an immigration attorney in Towson, Md., said: “This effort is a part of a broader escalation in immigration enforcement under the current administration, signaling a shift from targeting adults with criminal records to targeting children.
“It goes against the spirit of the SIJS legislation as it was originally enacted and punishes children and families who have done the right thing by following the proper procedures and ‘waiting in line’ for legal status."
Marina Shepelsky, an immigration lawyer in Brooklyn, N.Y., came to the U.S. as an immigrant herself, fleeing the Soviet Union. She said she gets frustrated at family members “cheering” on the Trump administration.
Marina Shepelsky during an interview with Raw Story (Screen grab)
“I find it to be almost hypocritical when people say, ‘Well, we went through the legal channels,” Shepelsky said.
“People will be so happy to go through legal channels if there were legal channels. If it was a real amnesty, millions of people would apply, and they would pay a $100,000 penalty. They would find the money, believe me.
“I think it's very cruel, this enforcement the way it’s done. I think that it's just a lot of it is done for show, as a deterrent to people, and I think it's unfair.”
Amoachi said children are generally inclined to comply with people in authority, which could compel them to accept a self-deportation offer.
UACs might also be tempted to take the $2,500 self-deportation stipend if there’s “implication that their family members could face repercussions,” meaning some children would be “willing to sacrifice themselves for their families," Amoachi said.
This summer DHS launched a voluntary departure program through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Home App, offering subsidized travel and a $1,000 “exit bonus.”
“None of this is accidental,” Kuck said. “They want to literally deport everybody, so they do the easy ones first.”
Shepelsky mainly represents Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia. Given her clients are usually white, “they are treated differently,” she said, “but I wouldn't say they're treated much, much better than others.”
“This is so inhumane and so not aligned with what all of us have always thought was the purpose of the immigration system.
“Now, instead of protecting them, especially kids, we are trying to buy them, bribe them, scare them, bully them, really, into leaving.”
Federal immigration officers speak to a child at a court in Manhattan. REUTERS/David 'Dee' Delgado