New data emerging on Thursday has revealed that voluntary departures for detained immigrants in the United States have reached their peak as legal pathways to residency narrow and wait times in the U.S court system stretch into years.
The data revealed that nearly 38% of completed immigration removal cases involving detainees ended in voluntary departure by the end of 2025—the highest share recorded in decades.
This surge reflects a growing sense of hopelessness among those held in custody, as many choose to leave the country on their own terms rather than endure indefinite detention with little chance of a favorable ruling.
The shift toward self-removal comes amidst a massive expansion of the immigration detention system.
It was gathered that as of January 2026, the number of individuals in ICE custody reached a record-breaking 73,000, straining facilities and legal resources.
In December 2025 alone, over 7,300 voluntary departure orders were issued. Also, asylum grant rates have plummeted from over 50% in previous years to just 29% in late 2025.
For many, the decision to leave is not a sign of guilt but of “emotional exhaustion.” The current “no release” environment means that even those with no criminal record are often held for months without the possibility of bond.
Under these conditions, voluntary departures for detained immigrants become the only viable escape from deteriorating facility conditions and the psychological toll of isolation.
An immigrant identified as Vilma Palacios, while speaking with the press said he agreed to return to his home country, Honduras in late December after being detained for six months in Basile, Louisiana.
“It’s set up for every individual who is detained to get to the point where they’re just emotionally drained and exhausted through it all of the way that we’re being treated, to just say, ‘OK, all I want is my freedom,'” said Palacios.
It was gathered that Palacios, 22, had been in the U.S. since she was 6 years old. Last June, a month after she graduated from nursing school at Louisiana State University, ICE agents arrested her at a local police station after she brought in a car for a routine inspection. She has no criminal record.
Palacios said she and her family were apprehended and detained for a month at the border when they arrived in 2010 but were released and pursued an asylum case in the years following. Court records show her case was administratively closed in 2015, when she was 12 years old, meaning it was taken off the docket indefinitely.
She said her subsequent six-month stay in detention — during which she had no contact with family or friends — was emotionally exhausting.
“Everything was taken from me, like being ripped apart from every person that I loved, and being surrounded with people that I had never met in my life, and [ICE] having control over every movement that I made, was just something very difficult to me,” she said. “It got to the point where I didn’t see that I had no other option but just to say, OK, just please give me my freedom back.”
Palacios said she tried to offer medical care to fellow detainees in need when they faced delays in accessing doctors and nurses, but detention facility staff told her not to.
“Many women would always come up to me, or come up to the officers, and complain about the waiting time, that they weren’t receiving the treatment that they needed, that they were sick, and still had to wait two, three, four weeks, even months after, to be called,” Palacios said.
This revelation comes as the administration of U.S President Donald Trump scaled up its immigration policies, going after illegal immigrants in the country.
