Which countries or regions accounted for the largest share of voluntary departures in 2025?
Executive summary
Available reporting shows U.S. authorities and analysts in 2025 described unusually large numbers of “voluntary” or “self‑deportations” tied to U.S. enforcement programs — the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publicly claimed about 1.6 million voluntary self‑deportations in 2025 and announced over 2 million people left the U.S. since the administration took office, including that 1.6 million figure [1] [2]. Independent analysts and outlets flagged that the 1.6 million total and how it is allocated by country or region is not fully documented in the linked reporting [3] [4].
1. Numbers touted by DHS and what they mean
DHS press releases in 2025 stated that more than 2 million “illegal aliens” had left the United States in less than 250 days, and that an estimated 1.6 million of those were voluntary self‑deportations [1] [2]. The administration also promoted a CBP “Home” app and a $1,000 stipend for people who choose the self‑deportation pathway, which officials said encouraged departures [3] [2]. These official claims provide the headline totals but do not, in the cited releases and pieces, break those voluntary departures down by origin country or region [1] [2] [3].
2. Independent reporting and skepticism about the country breakdown
Journalists and fact‑checkers noted both the large totals and gaps in documentation: Axios reported the 1.6 million voluntary departures figure and that most people counted were not using the Home app, while declining to provide a country‑by‑country breakdown in the same piece [3]. PolitiFact/WRAL and other fact‑check contexts flagged that estimates of how many people “voluntarily” left come from combining different data sources and inferred population changes — analyses that don’t directly map to origin‑country tallies in the DHS releases [4]. In short, the public figures exist, but available reporting does not attach them to a clear list of countries or regions [3] [4] [1].
3. What the sources do provide about geography elsewhere (non‑U.S. contexts)
Other migration reporting in 2025 documented large voluntary return programs and returns in regions outside the U.S. For example, the Mixed Migration Centre reported government‑facilitated voluntary returns of roughly 3,300 migrants from Algeria, Tunisia and Libya as part of European‑funded programmes and described large returns from Iran of Afghans (hundreds of thousands) tied to regional crackdowns — demonstrating that large voluntary returns happen regionally, but not linking to DHS counts [5]. These regional accounts show that “voluntary returns” are a global phenomenon but are separate from the DHS self‑deportation totals [5].
4. Why a country/region breakdown is hard to find in current reporting
The sources show multiple methodological issues: DHS and its spokespeople presented aggregate self‑deportation numbers without publishing underlying trip‑manifest or sending‑country summaries in the cited items [1] [2]. Axios and other outlets noted the agency’s unconventional data approach and that most of the 1.6 million purported voluntary departures were not tracked via the Home app, implying incomplete traceability to destination countries [3]. Fact‑checking pieces also stressed that demographic or survey drops (e.g., Pew estimates of population decline) may be influenced by survey nonresponse, not just returns, complicating a direct country attribution [4] [6].
5. Competing viewpoints in the sources
DHS framed the surge in voluntary departures as enforcement success and described incentives (flights, stipends) and pressure to encourage self‑departure [1] [2]. Migration experts and independent analysts quoted in Stateline, MPI and Axios portrayed the phenomenon differently: as partly coerced, legally complex, and methodologically opaque, and they cautioned about interpreting headline totals without detailed data [7] [3] [6]. The Mixed Migration Centre materials show states and EU partners also fund voluntary return programs that are distinct in scale and intent from U.S. policies [5].
6. What’s missing and what to watch for next
Available sources do not publish a country‑by‑country or regional breakdown of the DHS 1.6 million voluntary departures; the datasets and manifests that would allow verification are not included in the cited reporting [3] [1]. For a definitive answer, watch for forthcoming DHS/CBP/ICE granular reports, congressional testimony, or independent data releases (e.g., manifests or partner‑country confirmations) that explicitly list destinations and how many people arrived there — none of which are present in these sources [3] [1] [2].
Sources cited: DHS press releases and coverage [1] [2], Axios reporting [3], Migration Policy Institute [7], Stateline and Mixed Migration Centre [6] [5], fact‑check context [4].