The Department of Homeland Security is offering plane tickets and roughly $2,100 per person to illegal immigrants who agree to leave the country voluntarily. That's the new self-deportation initiative DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced on CNN's "State of the Union" this weekend, days after the Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling in Mullin v. Doe that affirmed the administration's authority to end Temporary Protected Status designations.

The government is now paying people to do what the law already required. Progress.

The June 25 decision was the culmination of a legal fight over TPS — the program Congress created in 1990 to grant temporary stays of 6-18 months to nationals from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. The operative word was always "temporary." For roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals and approximately 6,100 Syrian nationals currently in the U.S. under TPS, the Supreme Court just underlined it.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the 6-3 majority, held that the executive branch retains full authority to terminate TPS designations — a power lower courts had been chipping away at for years. The ruling removed the last legal obstacle standing between the administration and enforcement of what the statute plainly says.

Secretary Mullin laid out the new DHS framework in blunt terms. "Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status or we'll help you get back to your country," Mullin said. "We'll actually give you a plane ticket, plus roughly $2,100 to help you re-establish when you get there, but temporary protective status, according to the courts and in its name itself, is not permanent status."

The voluntary departure assistance program gives TPS holders two options: begin the legal immigration process through proper channels or accept a funded trip home. No raids. No detention facilities. Just a clear choice backed by a Supreme Court ruling that says the government can enforce the one it already made.

Critics will frame this as heartless — uprooting people who've lived in the U.S. for years under rolling TPS extensions. And it's true that many Haitian TPS holders have been here for over a decade, building lives around a designation that kept getting renewed. But the program was never designed to be a backdoor to permanent residency. Congress wrote the word "temporary" into the statute's name. The Supreme Court just held the government to it.

The broader pattern is hard to miss. For years, administrations of both parties extended TPS designations long past the crises that triggered them. What was supposed to be emergency shelter became indefinite residence, and challenging the arrangement became politically toxic. The 6-3 ruling in Mullin v. Doe didn't rewrite immigration law. It restored the version Congress actually passed in 1990.

The DHS rollout is already underway. The combination of a definitive court ruling and a funded exit ramp means enforcement doesn't require a single door kicked in. The law says temporary. The court confirmed it. DHS built an off-ramp with a check attached.

Turns out when "temporary" actually means temporary, you don't need a deportation force. You need a travel agent.