Ko's novel was inspired by a 2009 article in The New York Times describing an undocumented immigrant from Fuzhou, China, who was arrested at a Greyhound station in Florida on her way to a new job and spent a year and a half in detention.

[5] Writing for The New York Times, Gish Jen praised the novel for taking the headline-news of immigration and "remind[ing] us that beyond [that] lie messy, brave, extraordinary, ordinary lives.

"[6] At the same time, Jen felt the prose was overly expository and that some conservative plot points mark "this book as one that takes risks but then hedges its bets.

"[6] Reviewing the novel for The Guardian, Arifa Akbar felt, "The Leavers ... themes of displacement and deportation carry deep and desperately urgent resonances far beyond America, and fiction.

Ko movingly captures Polly and Deming's liminal presence in the immigrant community, on the margins of society in overcrowded apartments, in nail parlours and factories, who are always there yet invisible to the rest of us.