WaPo: Uptick in Voluntary Departures

WaPo today covers a story that strikes me as unsurprising: there has been an uptick in migrants accepting voluntary departure. Specifically, between January 2025 and March 2026, IJs granted voluntary departure to some 80,000 noncitizens. This is, WaPo notes, around 11x the number of such orders during the last year+ of the Biden Administration.

“People are taking it because they’re trying to get out of detention more quickly, because they don’t see any possible avenues for relief for themselves,” said Shayna Kessler, director of the Advancing Universal Representation initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice. “It really appears as though it’s a component of this mass deportation agenda where people are being encouraged to depart even when they have potentially a lawful right to stay.”

WaPo spoke to the brother of an asylum seeker from the Middle East who opted for voluntary departure. He reported suffering panic attacks and chest pains during confinement. After deportation to Uganda was mentioned, he opted for voluntary departure.

“He told me: ‘Look, I am dying here anyway. I’d rather die in my country instead of going to a place where I’m going to die,’” his brother said in an interview. “‘I cannot live without freedom.’”

One immigration lawyer/former IJ said what I imagine we all understand:

“This type of voluntary departure is not voluntary,” she said. “It’s coerced.”