Assisted Voluntary Return, Post-Arrival Assistance, and Reintegration: IOM’s Role Explained

Overview

Migrants sometimes find themselves unable to remain in a host or transit country — due to lack of legal status, detention, or the exhaustion of other options. In these circumstances, return may become the most viable path available.

IOM’s work in this area falls into two distinct but related tracks, which are often confused in public discussion:

Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR): Programmes led and operated by IOM, initiated by migrants who choose to return and request IOM’s support.

Post-Arrival Assistance: Support provided by IOM at the request of a receiving state, to help that state assist people who have arrived through return operations — including deportations — carried out by other actors.

These are different in their legal basis, what triggers them, and IOM’s role in each. Both are explained below.

IOM recognises that individuals faced with these decisions are rarely making them in unconstrained circumstances. A person may face detention, depleted resources, or they are in a legal situation that leaves few alternatives. In both tracks, our role is to ensure that individuals have access to information and support — and that assistance is provided with full respect for their rights and dignity.

IOM’s capacity to provide assistance on either track is subject to available funding, programme scope, and operational access. We cannot guarantee assistance in all contexts.

ASSISTED VOLUNTARY RETURN AND REINTEGRATION (AVRR)

AVRR is an IOM-led programme. It begins when a migrant chooses to return to their country of origin or a country where they have the right to enter and stay, and requests IOM’s support to do so. IOM does not initiate returns. The migrant does.

Before any assistance is provided, IOM conducts individual counselling to ensure the person has accurate, neutral, and complete information about their options and what IOM can offer. The migrant confirms their consent in writing if they choose to proceed. They can ask questions at any time and withdraw without consequence.

Assistance may include:

Clear, neutral information on available options

Contact with consular offices regarding identity and travel documents

Transportation and logistical support

Vulnerability screening and individual needs assessments

Tailored support for those in vulnerable situations — including unaccompanied children, trafficking victims, and those with health needs

Post-arrival and reintegration assistance in the country of origin/legal stay

IOM’s support does not end on arrival. Reintegration assistance aims to support economic self-sufficiency, psychosocial wellbeing, and social stability.

AVRR is not enforcement. It is migrant-initiated, consent-based, and entirely separate from deportation or forced removal, which are carried out by some governments.

In 2025, IOM helped more than 81,000 people return home from 115 countries through AVRR, and assisted more than 82,000 people with reintegration, across 147 countries of origin. These figures represent individuals who specifically requested and received IOM’s support — they are not a count of all returns globally.

POST-ARRIVAL ASSISTANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF RETURN CARRIED OUT BY OTHERS

Governments carry out return operations — including deportations and enforced removals — independently of IOM. In some of these cases, the receiving state asks IOM to support its capacity to assist people who have arrived.

This is a fundamentally different situation from AVRR. IOM is not the return operator. IOM is not involved in the bilateral agreements between states. IOM plays no role in the decision to remove someone, the logistics of the removal, or the legal framework governing it.

IOM’s involvement begins only after arrival, and only at the request of the receiving state. When provided, IOM’s provision of post-arrival assistance does not constitute endorsement of a state’s decision to remove or admit an individual. IOM provides this assistance in fulfillment of its mandate to support migrants in vulnerable situations.

Returns to country of origin

Where migrants are returned by a third-party actor to their country of origin, IOM may — at the receiving state’s request — provide needs-based support, including health care, counselling, protection screening, other essential services, and reintegration assistance. 

Before engaging, IOM conducts its own independent protection assessment to confirm that the individual has been formally admitted, that their rights and dignity can be upheld, that the operating environment is conducive to an IOM intervention, and that meaningful consent can be obtained. IOM will not provide assistance where these conditions are not met.

Removal to a third country

In some cases — based on agreements between States — migrants are transferred not to their country of origin but to a third country. IOM does not negotiate or endorse agreements leading to such transfers and plays no role in the transfer itself.

Where the receiving state requests IOM’s support, IOM may provide health care, counselling, and protection screening support for access to other essential services for migrants who have arrived in that third country, subject to the same protection assessment described above.  Individuals in a third country who wish to return voluntarily to their country of origin may request IOM’s support to do so. This onward movement is handled through standard AVRR procedures, and is migrant-initiated and consent-based.

Before agreeing to engage, IOM assesses whether essential safeguards can be put in place, including legal stay arrangements, freedom of movement, and access to international protection. Where these conditions cannot be met, IOM may decline to engage or limit the assistance it provides.

What IOM does not do in either context:

Force anyone to return

Conduct deportations, forced removals, or transfers

Negotiate or endorse bilateral removal or transfer agreements between States

Provide assistance where doing so would risk contributing to refoulement, discrimination, or violations of procedural safeguards

Public reporting indicated that from the beginning of 2025 through September 2026, tens of thousands of people were removed from the United States to third countries.

IOM’s engagement in this context depends entirely on being asked by the receiving government, and on safeguards being in place. Where we have been asked and those conditions exist, as of September 2026, we have supported roughly 800 people, providing health care, counselling, and protection screening; about 300 later chose voluntary return.  

The gap between that number and the tens of thousands removed is a reflection of how few governments invited IOM to help or that the conditions we require were not met.