DEL RIO, Texas (NewsNation) — While cities across the U.S. brace for President-elect Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations, some immigrants are choosing to self-deport.
The U.S. has seen the largest immigration surge in American history, with an annual average of about 2.5 million people between 2021 and 2023.
Border officials tell NewsNation that migrants who are going through their asylum proceedings are, in some cases, cutting things short on their own and finding ports of entry that will allow them to leave ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
However, since many of those migrants are already in U.S. legal proceedings, they could face issues when they return to the U.S. later.
“They are probably not going to be able to get back in to reapply or to start the process over,” said immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. “You kind of get one chance, and if you give up halfway through, you don’t get to come back and ask for asylum again. You’ll be put in a different type of proceeding, and you won’t have asylum available to you.”
Many of the migrants who have spoken with NewsNation’s Ali Bradley say they are concerned by the threat of being deported, but some are also convinced that Trump will only go after criminals and the people who have a final order of removal first.
Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are already rolling out proposals that could help him carry out his pledge to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million immigrants were illegally living in the U.S. as of 2022, the latest statistics available. While campaigning, Trump talked about creating “the largest mass deportation program in history” and called for using the National Guard and domestic police forces in the effort.