DHS Secures 80,000 Illegal Alien ‘Voluntary Departures’ as the Left Rages Over Trump’s Deportation Drive

The Washington Post and its pro migration allies are wringing their hands again, this time over a story they wish they could bury.

More than 80,000 illegal aliens have accepted “voluntary departure” agreements since January 2025.

That means thousands are packing up and leaving the country on their own terms rather than dragging out another baseless asylum claim in an overburdened court system.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that figure, citing the first quarter of 2026 alone.

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Judges, acting under renewed direction from Trump’s immigration team, have been issuing these orders at an unprecedented pace.

Migrants who take this route voluntarily agree to return home while preserving the possibility of a legal reentry years later.

It is a win for border enforcement, a win for taxpayers, and a loss for the leftist activist class that thrives on chaos in the immigration system.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice, a group with a long history of pushing open border policies, the current number dwarfs what occurred during Joe Biden’s administration.

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Back then, only 11,400 migrants took the deal in the final 15 months before the Trump revival.

Even Vera’s researchers were forced to admit that 70 percent of Trump era voluntary departures came from detained migrants, far higher than anything seen during the Biden years.

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement have embraced voluntary departures as a practical solution.

It saves detention space, cuts litigation costs, and allows officers to keep up with the escalating number of arrests.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been unapologetic, celebrating the policy’s efficiency and proving that the department can enforce the law without the bureaucratic foot-dragging that leftist administrations encouraged.

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Migrants, on the other hand, often take these deals simply because it spares them months of sitting in detention with little hope of winning bogus asylum appeals.

By signing a voluntary departure, they end up out of detention faster and can apply to return legally in the future.

Of course, forced deportations remain on the table for those who refuse to comply, and those generally bar reentry entirely.

What the corporate press leaves out is that hundreds of thousands more migrants are quietly self-deporting, leaving the country without notifying the government.

Those silent exits tell a story the Washington Post refuses to print: the magnet for illegal entry is fading under Trump’s second term and migrants know it.

All of this stands in sharp contrast to the Biden years, when ICE was instructed to release detainees almost as soon as they were caught.

Those releases allowed migrants to disappear into the workforce, where sympathetic lawyers and leftist nonprofits could stall deportations for years.

The Trump team has ended that practice, signaling that the era of catch and release is finished.

Naturally, the open borders lobby is furious. Left-aligned judges have been fighting the administration over its decision to cancel so-called “bond hearings,” where migrants asked to be released pending deportation proceedings.

Some appeals courts have sided with the administration, acknowledging Congress gave wide authority to enforce detention while a few activist judges have cried foul, claiming the federal power is too extensive.

The Vera Institute, whose taxpayer funding was cut last year, attacked the administration for using voluntary departure as a tool to speed things up.

They argue it is “undesirable” because it forces migrants to leave with no guarantee of ever returning and surrenders the chance to appeal their case.

In Washington-speak, that complaint translates to fewer billable hours for progressive immigration lawyers.

Meanwhile, the administration has achieved other quiet victories. Asylum approvals are down by roughly 90 percent, drying up what was once the easiest loophole in the law.

Each reduction further discourages economic migrants who see fewer chances of gaming the system.

None of this sits well with America’s elite business and political class, who desperately want cheap labor and globalized control.

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, they fund advocacy groups demanding more migration, claiming the nation suffers from “worker shortages.”

The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, eagerly parrots this narrative, calling for a bigger “legal” front door to replace illegal entry.

The real message is the same as always: the donor class wants more low-wage workers and less political power for citizens.

Trump’s team, however, is listening to actual voters. “Just yesterday, we arrested over 1,900 individuals,” Secretary Mullin said this month.

“We have over 60,000 individuals currently being detained, going through the process of being deported. Last week, we deported over 2,700 per day.”

Ordinary Americans have long demanded this level of enforcement; now they are finally seeing it in action.

Democrats and their activist allies are counting on November’s midterms to slow the crackdown, hoping that another shift in Congress could once again open up the southern border.

But for now, the numbers speak louder than the noise.

The Department of Homeland Security is finally doing its job, and tens of thousands are heading home without waiting for another round of lawsuits.

It is a strong start to restoring border integrity after years of intentional neglect.

The bureaucrats and corporate progressives who helped build the migrant mess are losing ground, and Americans frustrated with runaway lawlessness are seeing results for the first time in a long time.

The left can spin it as cruelty, but the truth looks a lot like law and order returning to the border.

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