Over 429 immigrants in San Francisco sought voluntary departure between January 2025 and February 2026, many after the Department of Homeland Security filed at least 1,347 "pretermit motions" in the city to deport them to third countries where they have no ties; nationwide, judges granted roughly 23,000 similar requests in the same period. Victoria Hernandez, a Colombian asylum-seeker who fled armed group threats, chose voluntary departure rather than risk removal to Honduras or Ecuador and now has less than 120 days to leave the country with her two children. Immigration attorney Nicole Gorney said Judge Frank A. Seminario, one of the few immigration judges remaining in San Francisco after others were fired or resigned, now offers voluntary departure in nearly every case involving a pretermit motion. The filings, which had surged to as many as 1,000 a day nationally in November 2025, stopped three weeks ago under a federal directive.