There is an important difference between someone being expelled and someone leaving. In Donald Trump’s new immigration era, that line is no longer clear.

In the first 13 months of his administration, immigration judges signed more than 80,000 voluntary departure orders, an increase of more than seven times compared with the 11,400 recorded in the last 15 months of Joe Biden’s administration.

They are not deported in the strict sense: they are immigrants who, faced with an increasingly hostile system, decided to leave before they were kicked out. And among them are Latin Americans with years of life built in the country, people with asylum cases in progress, families with children born on American soil.

What voluntary departure is (and how it differs from “self-deportation”)

The difference between both contexts is that self-deportation consists of leaving the country without official intervention, while voluntary departure refers to the formal and legal process in which a person leaves the country of their own free will under certain conditions.

Voluntary departure is a legal provision that allows a person to leave the U.S. with a judge’s authorization before there is a formal deportation order. The immigrant gives up continuing to litigate their case, including a possible asylum claim or other humanitarian protection, but avoids a deportation order that can prevent their legal return for years or even permanently.

In other words, the person leaves on their own, within the time set by the judge, and some doors remain open for the future.

If the deadline is not met, those doors close: if the immigrant does not leave the country within the established time, voluntary departure can lead to a deportation order with much more severe consequences.

Who can request voluntary departure?

Voluntary departure is not available to all immigrants. In general, the following people cannot access this benefit:

  • Have committed serious crimes, such as murder, rape, or human trafficking.
  • Be linked to terrorist activities.
  • Have not lived in the United States for at least one year before receiving the Notice to Appear.
  • Cannot prove that they have the financial resources needed to leave the country within the established time.
  • Have been deported previously.
The trap of confinement: why “choice” is not always free

Before, many immigrants could continue their proceedings while free as they waited for a hearing. Now, an increasing number remain detained until their case is resolved, which substantially changed the calculation for thousands of people who, even if they have grounds to seek asylum or other protection, end up abandoning their cases because they do not want to spend months locked up.

Added to this is another factor: Trump officials fired more than 100 immigration judges and hired new magistrates, some with little immigration experience.

Since then, denials of asylum and other humanitarian protections have increased, and the newest judges are being disproportionately assigned to the cases of detained people, where it is harder to get a lawyer, gather documents, contact witnesses, or prepare a defense.