To add to the confusion, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses the term "return" when reporting the number of voluntary departures.
This option is therefore rarely used, but it can help aliens who wish to leave the United States after a brief unauthorized entry establish more clearly the duration of their stay, and make for a more transparent immigration record for the future.
This is because these forms of relief or adjustment of status are only available if the alien is physically present in the United States.
The 1940 statute provided for voluntary departure before removal proceedings in lieu of deportation to any alien "who has proved good moral character for the preceding five years."
The Attorney General was granted the right to deny such relief to any individual whom the Attorney General reasonably believed fell into statutorily specified categories, including drug dealers, document falsifiers, subversives, criminals, and participants in Nazi persecutions.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 additionally precluded the grant of voluntary departure to an alien convicted of an aggravated felony.
This included the addition of civil penalties for failure to depart voluntarily, an increase in the ineligibility period for various forms of relief from 5 to 10 years, and a removal of various exceptional circumstances.
In the mid-2000s, the United States, under President George W. Bush and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, made a number of changes to ramp up immigration enforcement.
Examples of this ramp-up included completing the rollout of expedited removal to the entire border zone, phasing out catch and release, and starting Operation Streamline for criminal prosecution of repeat unlawful entrants and unlawful entrants with criminal backgrounds.
These changes were continued by the next President, Barack Obama, with the support of DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John T.
[2][5][7] Correspondingly, groups interested in combating illegal immigration welcome the shift away from voluntary departure towards removal orders.