Some immigrants chose to leave the US. But is ‘self-deportation’ really becoming a thing?

The Trump administration is now promoting the option once seen as a joke, but experts say the reality is complex

Their stories have emerged in new reports and on social media feeds: individuals and families, sometimes of mixed immigration status, who have lived in the United States for years and are now choosing to leave. Or, as it's sometimes called, self-deport".

There was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's former deputy communications director Diego de la Vega, who lived as an undocumented New Yorker for 23 years before he and his wife left for Colombia in December, shortly after Donald Trump's election. Or the decorated army veteran, a permanent resident in the US for nearly 50 years, who left for South Korea this week after being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Or newlyweds Alfredo Linares, an undocumented chef, and his wife, Raegan Klein, a US citizen, who recently moved their lives from Los Angeles to Mexico.