Charlotte’s immigration court just hit a new gear. In 2025, judges there ordered 21,712 people removed from the United States, a jump of roughly 50 percent over the 14,272 removals recorded in 2024. Voluntary departures, where people agree to leave instead of taking a formal removal order, climbed even faster, from 167 to 799.
All told, the court wrapped up nearly 31,774 cases in 2025, even as about 129,000 cases remain on Charlotte’s docket. For local residents and legal-aid groups, that mix of a huge backlog and faster decisions means tighter timelines and a heavier scramble to mount a defense.
Those figures come from court records reviewed by Julian Berger at WFAE. WFAE reports that the Charlotte immigration court, which handles cases for both North and South Carolina, saw increases in both removal orders and voluntary departures in 2025 compared with 2024.
Federal data show a national uptick
Charlotte is not an outlier in at least one respect. Nationwide, the Executive Office for Immigration Review reported hundreds of thousands of removal decisions in fiscal year 2025 as it pushed to complete more cases.
According to EOIR, its FY 2025 Decision Outcomes list 485,456 removal decisions and 34,707 voluntary-departure orders across the country. The agency said it processed cases at a brisk pace in 2025 while still wrestling with a very large pending caseload.
What voluntary departure actually means
Voluntary departure allows someone in immigration court to leave the United States within a time period set by the judge instead of receiving a formal removal order. It can sound like a softer landing, but the fine print matters.
The basic rules live in 8 U.S.C. § 1229c, and the detailed regulations — including how alternate removal orders work and what happens if someone does not actually leave — are set out in 8 C.F.R. § 1240.26. In practice, if a person fails to depart on time, the voluntary-departure grant can turn into an administratively final removal order and trigger bars on future relief or reentry.
Access to counsel shapes outcomes
Who has a lawyer in court often shapes who gets to stay. The American Immigration Council’s court-by-court review finds representation rates vary significantly from one immigration court to another, and Charlotte is among the courts with lower representation.
American Immigration Council research links representation to outcomes, noting that people with attorneys are substantially more likely to avoid removal than those who have to navigate the system alone.
Backlog and local consequences
All of this is playing out against a national docket that is stretched thin. TRAC’s QuickFacts dashboard shows about 3.38 million active immigration-court cases were pending as of December 2025, putting pressure on judges and legal-service providers.
TRAC also reports that judges closed hundreds of thousands of cases in FY 2025, a pace that affects which cases advance and how quickly people must decide whether to pursue relief or accept voluntary departure. For legal clinics in and around Charlotte, that can translate into compressed preparation time and more people opting to leave.
Experts and local advocates say the rising numbers of removals and voluntary departures highlight the need for more legal resources and faster outreach to those with upcoming hearings. With both national and Charlotte-specific data pointing to quicker case resolutions in 2025, immigrant communities and service providers in the Carolinas are watching closely to see how court workloads and access to counsel shape outcomes this year.
