The number of illegal immigrants in the country who are self-deporting under President Donald Trump’s strict immigration and border enforcement policies is skyrocketing, according to a new report.
The Washington Post, citing newly unearthed data, reported Friday that some 80,000 illegals had voluntarily left the U.S. amid increasing pressure to do so from the Department of Homeland Security.
“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.
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The figures were released by the Vera Institute of Justice, a pro-migration organization whose federal funding was reduced in 2025, Breitbart News reported.
The data also reflect what the administration says is progress in its broad campaign to curb illegal immigration and accelerate deportations, despite intense opposition from well-funded pro-migration advocacy groups backed by political and legal activists.
The number of migrants abandoning their immigration cases — including asylum claims — is reportedly at least seven times higher than during the final 15 months of the Biden administration, when roughly 11,400 people chose that option.
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More than 70 percent of those granted voluntary departure orders during Trump’s second administration were being held in immigration detention at the time they requested to leave voluntarily, a substantially larger share than under former President Joe Biden.
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accept voluntary departure agreements because they allow for faster removals and help free detention space for additional cases. Migrants often agree to the arrangement because it secures their release from detention while preserving the possibility of legally returning to the United States in the future.
By contrast, formal deportation orders can carry permanent bans on reentering the country.
In many other cases, hundreds of thousands of migrants are believed to be quietly leaving the United States without formally notifying the government. Those voluntary self-deportations can help preserve migrants’ ability to seek legal reentry into the country at a later date, since they may avoid the penalties typically associated with formal removal orders, noted Breitbart.
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The surge in voluntary departures comes after deputies under President Donald Trump ended the long-standing practice of releasing many illegal migrants from detention following their arrests inside the United States, a policy commonly used by administrations since 1990.
Those releases often allowed migrants to continue working in the country while hiring attorneys to contest their deportation cases in immigration court.
In response, pro-migration advocacy groups have pressed judges to restore so-called “bond hearings,” where detained migrants can request release while their cases proceed. Federal appeals courts have issued conflicting rulings over the administration’s authority to restrict those hearings, setting up a legal battle that could ultimately reach the Supreme Court of the United States as early as 2027, said the outlet.
The pro-migration judges’ “objection [over the bond-hearings ban] is not that Congress hid the authority … but that the authority granted is too large,” noted one judge who wrote in support of the Trump administration’s ban on bond hearings.
Meanwhile, the Vera Institute is urging illegal aliens to legally fight to be released after they’ve been arrested rather than voluntarily agree to depart the U.S.
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The Trump administration is leveraging a wide range of strategies to carry out its mass deportation agenda. Among those facing deportation within the United States immigration court system, more people are receiving a case outcome requiring them to leave the country under the current administration than under the Biden administration,” the org says in a statement.
“While this increase is coming in part through more removal orders, it is disproportionately driven by an increase in judges granting voluntary departure,” the group added.
“Voluntary departure is an undesirable outcome for many, requiring departure from the United States with no guarantee of ever being able to return, a waiver of the chance to pursue relief on a case or appeal, and sometimes involving prolonged detention before a person can leave,” it said.
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