The U.S. State Department has moved $250 million to the Department of Homeland Security for voluntary deportations by migrants without legal status, a spokesperson said, an unprecedented repurposing of funds that have been used to aid refugees uprooted by war and natural disasters.

The money has been transferred "to provide a free flight home and an exit bonus to encourage and assist illegal aliens to voluntarily depart the United States," the State Department spokesperson told Reuters.

Historically, those funds have been used "to provide protection to vulnerable people" overseas and to resettle refugees in the U.S., said Elizabeth Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary of state.

The re-routing of the money comes as President Donald Trump pushes to reshape U.S. government agencies to serve his “America First” agenda.

The State Department’s planned reorganisation explicitly states that the agency’s refugee bureau now largely will focus on efforts to “return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status.”

The funds came from Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) overseen by the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration. Its website says its mission is to "reduce illegal immigration," aid people "fleeing persecution, crisis or violence and seek durable solutions for forcibly displaced people."

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, citing the law authorizing the funding, said in a May 7 Federal Register notice that underwriting the repatriation of people without legal status will bolster the "foreign policy interests" of the U.S.

He did not mention the $250 million transfer to DHS.

The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's administration is working to speed up deportations in a crackdown that the Republican president vowed during the 2024 campaign would expel millions of people illegally in the U.S.

It has encouraged migrants to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador.

But the volume of deportations since he took office in January appears to be less than those overseen by his predecessor Joe Biden in the February-May period of 2024, about 200,000 people versus 257,000.

On May 9, Trump announced Project Homecoming, an initiative overseen by DHS that offers $1,000 stipends and travel assistance to migrants who "self-deport."

DHS said in a May 19 news release that 64 people had "opted to self-deport" to Honduras and Colombia on a charter flight under the program.

Some experts said that while legal, sending the money to DHS for deportation operations was an unprecedented use of MRA funds.

The main purpose of the funds historically has been "to provide refugee and displacement assistance, refugee processing and resettlement to the U.S., and respond to urgent and emerging humanitarian crises - not to return those very people to the harm or persecution they fled,” said Meredith Owen Edwards, senior director of Policy and Advocacy at the Refugee Council USA.