Immigrants in removal proceedings who know their hearings are going to end badly may be able to salvage their situation by requesting voluntary departure.

They would still have to leave the U.S., but they wouldn’t be deported. It's an important distinction: Deportation would bar them from entering the U.S. lawfully for between five and 20 years. Voluntary departure, which carries no such sanction, might be a benefit not only to the immigrant, but also to President Trump.

Trump’s enforcement objective is to return “millions and millions of criminals back to the places from which they came.” An immigration court backlog crisis makes it impossible to put that many immigrants through removal proceedings. The backlog has reached more than 4 million cases.

Voluntary departure only reduces the backlog if it is granted at a master calendar hearing. That is when immigrants in removal proceedings appear before an immigration judge to have their cases scheduled for a merits hearing, which is when deportability and any available form of relief from deportation is adjudicated. If voluntary departure is granted at a master calendar hearing, there is no merits hearing, which takes cases off of the immigration court’s backlog........

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