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| HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images |
The Washington Post is lamenting the “voluntary departure” of more than 80,000 economic migrants amid stepped-up pressure from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“Judges issued more than 80,000 voluntary departure orders from January 2025 through March of this year … [to migrants] who request to leave on their own terms while giving up the opportunity to seek a new life in the U.S.,” the newspaper reported on May 8.
The numbers were provided by the Vera Institute of Justice, a pro-migration group whose federal funding was cut in 2025. They are also another sign of progress in the administration’s myriad small and large efforts to block migration and speed deportations, amid furious opposition from elite-backed pro-migration groups.
The Post‘s report continued:
The number of people abandoning their immigration cases [for example, asylum claims] is at least seven times as high as the number seen in the last 15 months of the Biden administration, when 11,400 took that option. More than 70 percent of those granted a voluntary departure order during President Donald Trump’s second administration were being held in immigration detention when they made the request, a far higher share than those who departed willingly while Joe Biden was in the White House.
ICE officials accept voluntary departure deals because they allow them to quickly deport migrants, freeing up detention space for the next case. Migrants accept the voluntary deportation deals because the deal gets them out of detention and still leaves them an opportunity to return legally to the United States in subsequent years.
Forced deportations, in contrast, bar the future return of migrants.
In many additional cases, hundreds of thousands of migrants are quietly leaving the United States without telling the government. Their quiet self-deportations preserve the migrants’ hope of a subsequent legal return.
The voluntary departure spike comes after Trump’s deputies stopped releasing illegal migrants from detention after their arrest in the United States, which has been a normal practice by pro-migration White Houses since 1990. The easy releases allowed the migrants to keep working in the United States and to hire lawyers to block their deportations. --->READ MORE HERE
Migrants quitting asylum claims and volunteering to leave the US have increased at least seven-fold under President Trump — with the administration touting the increase as a success for the rule of law, but critics arguing it’s a sign detention practices have gotten out of hand.
More than 80,000 “voluntary departure” orders were issued by US immigration judges between Jan. 2025 and March 2026 — a more than 600% increase from the 11,400 issued during the last 15 months of former President Joe Biden’s term, according to numbers from the Vera Institute of Justice reviewed by the Washington Post.
And it seems to be on the rise — 6,370 took a voluntary departure order in July, while more than 9,000 did in March, the data shows.
By comparison, about 750 per month were voluntarily departing in the second half of Biden’s presidency.
It remains unclear how many of those numbers fall under the “self deportation” option President Trump has been pushing, which allows migrants to turn themselves in via a Department of Homeland Security app in return for a cash stipend and free flight home.
Voluntary departures are orders granted by a judge to immigrants who have decided not to pursue their asylum case and have historically been an option for people who aren’t expected to be granted asylum.
People who choose voluntary departure are not issued formal deportation orders, which makes it much easier to return to the US and try their hand at the immigration system at a later date.
Immigrants can’t have a serious criminal record to qualify, and generally must leave the country at their own expense. --->READ MORE HERE
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