How many presidents allowed self deportation

1. Self‑deportation is an old tactic, not a presidential novelty

The concept of encouraging or forcing migrants to leave on their own—sometimes labeled “self‑deportation”—has historical antecedents such as large federal and local campaigns that pressured Mexican and Mexican‑American residents to return to Mexico during the Mexican Repatriation era; that episode is explicitly described in the historical record as a large‑scale self‑deportation campaign orchestrated by federal officials in the Hoover era ^[1]. Modern practice includes three mechanisms of removal—formal deportation (removals), voluntary departure (administratively allowed returns), and self‑deportation—showing the tactic’s embeddedness in U.S. enforcement policy across decades ^[1].

2. Many administrations have relied on voluntary returns; the sources don’t count presidents

Reporting makes clear that until recent decades, many migrants encountered at the Southwest border were often allowed to “voluntarily return” or withdraw applications rather than face formal removal, which functionally amounts to state‑facilitated self‑departure; but the reviewed sources do not translate that practice into a numerical count of presidents who “allowed” it ^[2]. Scholarship and data over long periods document shifts in enforcement emphasis and volumes of removals and returns under multiple presidents, yet none of the supplied documents offers a definitive roster or a precise number of administrations that formally “allowed” self‑deportation as a policy choice ^{[5] [2]}.

3. Recent administrations: explicit encouragement vs. passive allowance

Contemporary reporting highlights that Donald Trump’s administrations explicitly pushed policies to encourage self‑deportation—using threatened penalties, revocations of temporary protections, new incentives and apps to facilitate returns, and harsh enforcement rhetoric intended to induce departures—which multiple analyses and watchdog groups describe as a deliberate “self‑deportation” strategy ^{[3] [4] [6]}. By contrast, the Obama administration tightened some interior enforcement priorities while also creating protective measures like DACA that reduced incentives to self‑deport for certain groups; Obama’s era also continued long‑standing practices like returns in many border encounters but is not typically characterized as pursuing “self‑deportation” campaigns in the same rhetorical sense ^{[7] [2]}.

4. Data gaps and the limits of public reporting

The sources demonstrate that self‑deportation is measurable in pieces—CBP app users, voluntary returns, and stipends tied to return programs have been counted in specific episodes—but there is no comprehensive public dataset or authoritative study in the provided material that lists every president who “allowed” self‑deportation or provides a simple numerical answer to the user’s question ^{[6] [4]}. Where some outlets or advocates frame particular presidencies as responsible for “self‑deportation” (e.g., Hoover’s repatriation campaigns or Trump’s recent inducements), those are case studies rather than part of a systematic presidential tally ^{[1] [3]}.

5. How to read competing narratives and motives

Accounts that emphasize one president’s responsibility for self‑deportation often serve distinct agendas: historical descriptions of repatriation underscore institutional racism and coercion ^[1], advocacy reports portray recent administrations’ inducement strategies as human‑rights threats ^[3], while government fact sheets and some policy analyses present voluntary returns as efficient enforcement tools or as part of lawful immigration control ^{[8] [5]}. The absence of a single authoritative count suggests the question is better framed as a historical pattern—multiple presidents have used, tolerated, or shaped practices that result in self‑deportation—rather than as a question with a neat numeric answer based on the documents supplied ^{[1] [2]}.