New data from Charlotte’s immigration court shows deportations and voluntary departures increased significantly in 2025.
Charlotte's immigration court, which handles cases from both North Carolina and South Carolina, ordered 21,712 people to be removed from the U.S. in 2025, up from 14,272 removals in 2024. That's roughly a 50% increase.
Another large increase came in voluntary departures, when immigrants choose to leave the U.S. rather than receive a formal removal order. Those cases rose from 167 in 2024 to 799 in 2025 — a nearly fourfold jump.
While deportations increased, the total number of cases decided by the court grew only slightly, from 28,241 in 2024 to nearly 31,774 in 2025. That means a larger share of cases ultimately resulted in deportation orders.
Charlotte’s immigration court still has a backlog of about 129,000 pending cases, the ninth largest in the country.
