Self-Deportation Surge Hits New High as Trump Administration Enforces the Law

As many as 80,000 "economic migrants" - that is to say, illegal aliens - have taken advantage of the opportunity to leave the United States voluntarily through a process of being granted a voluntary deportation order. Naturally, there are those in the legacy media who are bemoaning this actual enforcement of immigration law, but the deportations are going on regardless.

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.

Predictably, the WaPo is obfuscating the issue. The people who leave voluntarily are free to seek re-entry into the United States through the legal process; it is belaboring the obvious to note that they should have done that in the first place, but when they leave voluntarily, they at least have that option. Any illegal alien deported involuntarily is prohibited from returning. That's a key difference.

There may be many more illegal aliens self-deporting as well, "under the radar," as it were.

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.

In other words, unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration is enforcing our nation's immigration laws. That's all there is to it; just the enforcement of our laws, passed by Congress, signed by a president, as per the process defined in our Constitution. WaPo can bemoan the fate of what they euphemistically call "economic migrants" forever and a day, but that doesn't change the fact that these people are in the United States illegally.

Repeat Deportees Busted in Vegas: Two Mexican Men Charged With Illegal Re-Entry

Only last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin lauded his department's success in reducing illegal immigration and repatriating illegal aliens:

ICE IS NOT SLOWING DOWN.

“We haven’t missed a beat. We’re still on track — pushing as hard as we can. We just are doing it in a different way by using local law enforcement to work with us. " @SecMullinDHS pic.twitter.com/3r5Sr3Xz6g
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 5, 2026

Secretary Mullin said:

I’ve made this very clear when we were moving forward with my nomination that I wanted to get DHS out of the headlines so our ICE agents, our CBP agents, and all the other law enforcement agencies we have underneath DHS could go do their job without being harassed by the media.
That doesn’t mean we’re slowing down even a little bit. In fact, just yesterday we arrested over 1,900 individuals. We have over 60,000 individuals that are currently being detained going through the process of being deported. Last week we deported over 2,700.
We’re getting slowed down a little bit because of some of our court issues; we’re working through that. But we haven’t missed a beat. We’re still on track, pushing as hard as we can. We just are doing it in a different way by using local law enforcement to work with us.
In fact, I had a meeting this morning with local law enforcement about our 247, uh, our 287(g) program that is very effective. And then at the same time, we had a meeting about the last administration. It was interesting to me, Rob, when I sat down and talked to my ICE agents in a different state today, they were surprised we’re leaning so hard because underneath the Biden administration, they couldn't even go pick up individuals when local law enforcement would hold them. And, they were having a hard time deporting individuals when, once they got released from their prison sentences. We are leaning extremely hard in that. So no — absolutely positively we’re not slowing down one bit.

This is good. This is the law. These people are in the country illegally. If they leave voluntarily and want to apply to come back legally, fine. But they have to go home first. Also, if you want yet another in the umpty-squillion reasons to make sure you go vote in this fall's midterm elections, well, here you are.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.

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