New Yorkers Arrested by ICE Are Choosing Departure Over Indefinite Detention

By the end of the day, five of the 15 people who had come before the judge either formally requested or asked about so-called voluntary departure. They’re among the thousands arrested by ICE in New York state who have asked a judge to allow them to abandon their immigration cases and leave the United States of their own accord.

Voluntary departure is becoming increasingly common as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to keep immigrants who are fighting their cases confined in jails and detention centers. The prospect of waiting out the legal process while incarcerated, combined with the decreasing likelihood of winning their cases under new Trump administration policies, is pushing detained people — including some who fled violence or persecution in their home countries — to ask the government to allow them to leave.

According to updated government data processed by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by New York Focus, 22 percent of all arrests in New York state from the start of Trump’s second term to mid-March 2026 have resulted in voluntary departure. That’s up from less than 1 percent during the same period in 2023–2024.

New York’s numbers track with national trends, according to a Deportation Data Project analysis, which shows that voluntary departures increased by a factor of 28 in 2025. The report emphasizes that not everyone who requests voluntary departure, which comes with a shorter-term ban from reentering the US than deportation, is granted it.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure immigrants to leave the country before their immigration court cases are resolved. While former administrations allowed immigrants to fight their court cases while free, Trump’s ICE is keeping more people locked up in often brutal and neglectful detention facilities while their cases are active. Federal courts have issued conflicting rulings on the legality of indefinite immigration detention; an appellate case in the Second Circuit, which encompasses New York, is ongoing. At the same time, overhauls of immigration policies and mass firings of immigrant-friendly judges have decreased the likelihood of finding a path to legal status in the US.

In some instances, people are facing a choice between voluntary departure and forced rendition to a country to which they have no ties. According to the data, Trump’s ICE has sent around 300 New Yorkers to countries they aren’t from, up from just over 120 during the same period in 2023–2024. The most recent numbers are likely an undercount, said Phil Neff, research coordinator for the University of Washington Center for Human Rights and immigration data expert.

Immigration lawyers say their clients are increasingly choosing voluntary departure in the face of what they describe as a federal intimidation campaign.

“Fear is absolutely the number one reason. People just do not want to be detained. They do not want to languish in these facilities,” said Benjamin Remy, coordinating senior attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group’s Immigrant Protection Unit.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

For those who are jailed fighting asylum cases, the Trump administration’s dismantling of the asylum system adds to the feeling of hopelessness. By late 2025, asylum grant rates had fallen by half nationally. In New York state, asylum grant rates fell from 81 percent in fiscal year 2024 to 14 percent so far in fiscal year 2026, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data.

“People feel like they just can’t win,” Remy said.

The numbers published by the Deportation Data Project reflect people who opted for voluntary departure after they had already been arrested by ICE. That means that, for the most part, they weren’t eligible for the perks, like a free flight and stipend, that the Trump administration has offered to people who “self-deport” before arrest. Rather, people in detention often undertake voluntary departure as an escape from a desperate situation without a clear end in sight.

Souleymane, an asylum seeker in his early 30s from Burkina Faso, has spent nine months inside ICE detention at the private Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. ICE agents urged him multiple times to voluntarily leave the country, he said, telling him that he would potentially spend years in detention if he didn’t. He refused — until a judge denied him bond. At that point, he said, “I just want to get out of this place. It’s the only way I can finally calm my mind.”

Souleymane, whom New York Focus is identifying by a pseudonym while his exit plan is still pending, left his home village after gangs threatened and attacked him for campaigning against the practice of female genital mutilation, he said. He usually sends money home for his mother, wife, and eight-year-old son in Burkina Faso. After months of detention, his resources are running low. “This is ruining my life and ruining the life of my family,” he said. During his time at Delaney Hall, he said that he has seen people sign papers to accept voluntary departure to all corners of the globe, including Africa, Europe, and South America.

Some immigrants, faced with the prospect of detention, sign voluntary departure papers almost immediately after their arrest, said Karla Ostolaza, managing director of the immigration practice at the Bronx Defenders. She described a client who was arrested and told by ICE agents that voluntary departure would allow them to return to the US quickly. Otherwise, the agent said, they would spend months in detention before ever seeing a judge.

“It’s a problematic type of voluntary departure because it can be obtained, as in my client’s case, in a very coercive manner,’” Ostolaza said. “There’s no space between the arrest and the signing of voluntary departure, and there’s no third party, there’s no counsel.”