What do an Estonian, two Indians, two Guatemalans, a Lebanese, a Mexican and a Salvadoran have in common? They are the only eight people in the country out of 500,000 illegal immigrants deemed "eligible" who volunteered for self-deportation following the Department of Homeland Security's August initiative to get illegal immigrants to deport themselves.

The program, Operation Scheduled Departure, intended to grant illegal immigrants with no criminal record a way to leave the country without being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. When announced, most labeled the program a fools errand. But DHS officials insisted it was a "great opportunity."   

Despite the $41,000 spent on advertising the program - hardly a hulking amount for DHS, with an annual budget of $46 billion - only eight people elected to give themselves the boot. This comes as no surprise to immigration advocates, or really anyone with the sense to see that people who pile in the trunks of cars, crawl through sewers, run through the desert, and drift for weeks at sea wouldn't readily whisk themselves out the country they dreamed about for years before arriving.