He Donald Trump’s government boasts of an alleged wave of “voluntary returns” to showcase the success of his immigration policy one year after his electoral victory, on November 5, 2024. According to the Department of Justice, 15,241 people took advantage of “voluntary departures” in the last fiscal year, double that of the previous one. But, beyond the modest figure in a country of 347 million inhabitantsexperts emphasize that these are not “self-deportations” or the direct result of Trump’s policies.
These departures correspond to people with open immigration cases, to whom a judge offers to leave the country at their own expense — with a refund of up to 1,000 dollars— before receiving a formal deportation order. This way they avoid the ban on re-entering the United States for at least 10 years. “These are people with open cases before a judge. We are not seeing that people, after years living in the United States, decide to leave out of nowhere,” says Ariel Ruiz, analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a reference on immigration issues in the US.
Although the numbers remain low and actual deportations barely differ from Biden’s final yearthe Government has toughened non-voluntary expulsions. With the southern border almost closed and fewer entries, Trump is looking to keep up the pace. “The Government needs to maintain the pace of expulsions to sustain its narrative of immigration control, and it is doing so with procedures harder and less transparent”resume Ruiz.
From raids in public spaces to accelerated processes that reduce human rights guarantees, Trump’s motto here is also “Move fast and break things”, as his former campaign manager proclaimed. Steve Bannon. In practice, deportations have not increased: they have only become faster, more opaque and punitive.
tricky story
It is impossible to know how many people have left the United States of their own free will since Trump returned to the White House in January. Many do so without notifying the authorities, and others are counted in categories that mix different realities. According to official figures, ICE carried out 319,980 deportations between October 2024 and September 2025.
Trump officials go much further, without offering any evidence. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, assured in August that 1.6 million people have left the US “voluntarily or involuntarily” from the beginning of the mandate, based on a study of the Center for Immigration Studiesan ultraconservative policy advocacy group.
On the other hand, from the prestigious Migration Policy Institutewhich defines itself as a non-partisan research center and has never taken sides with any candidate, deny this. “The Government uses these figures as if they reflected a massive trend, but they do not speak of the same universe of people,” warns Ruiz.
The political narrative is built on these houses of cards. “The voluntary departures show that the strategy is working,” declared the Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlinwhen presenting the measure that offers 1,000 dollars to those who use the Customs and Border Protection mobile application (CBP to declare your departure from the country and return to your country of origin. Those who do not do so, he added, face the possibility of being sent to third countries such as Rwanda, South Sudan or Uganda.
Express raids and deportations
The strategies of the US Government go through the raids and the hot deportationseven when it involves playing at the limit of legality within the courts themselves.
“During the Biden Administration, when a judge closed an immigration case because he considered it ‘inconclusive,’ the person was free and could request asylum or regularize their situation later,” explains Ruiz. “Now, “The lawyers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service ask the judge to close the process so they can detain the person right after leaving the court and apply an expedited expulsion.”says Ruiz, who has seen hundreds of cases like this.
The closure of the case, which previously could have been an opportunity, has become a procedural trap. In practice, the Government is taking advantage of judicial files to accelerate deportations without guarantees.
The expedited expulsion procedure allows those who have been in the country for less than two years or reside near the border to be expelled without going through a court. Under Trump, that interpretation has widened: the margin is no longer 100 miles, but 200and it is being applied even to people with several years of residence or who entered legally but without “formal admission.” Also the interpretation of what the border is has been diluted: from the coasts to the shore of Lake Michigan, whose other shore is Canada.
This extension “drastically reduces the guarantees of due process” and “allows a person to be deported in a matter of hours or days, without judicial review or adequate access to defense,” says Ruiz.
“Democracies don’t do this,” reads a sign held by a protester at a protest in New York against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador, on April 24, 2025. / Europa Press/Gina M Ran
Surveys and propaganda
The Department of Homeland Security has worked to reinforce that narrative to the public. In a recent statement, he cited two polls to claim that “the American people overwhelmingly support mass deportations of illegal immigrants.”
One of them, Harvard/Harriscarried out by a consultancy from an ally of the president which has little to do with Harvard University, indicates that the 56% of registered voters support “deporting all illegal immigrants,” and a 78% supports expelling those with criminal records – which is not the case for the majority of deportees since they are detained in random raids.
Thus, between selective figures and related surveys, the Trump Administration tries to project the image of a supported and effective mandate. But behind the numbers lies a less epic reality: deportations have not increased significantlysolo They have become faster, more opaque and more punitive.
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