How does one get a plane ticket once voluntary departure has been granted?

Thanks for your inquiry. The answer to this question really depends on the requirements of the Deportation Officer who is handling the case. My advice would be to have your friend or someone else contact the officer directly and ask him/her how to do this in such a way so as to make sure that money is not being spent on a ticket that is not going to accomplish to goal for which it was intended. Voluntary departure for a foreign national who is in detention is always one of those concerns that I have difficulty understanding. Many times individuals who are detained have this idea that purchasing a ticket will make their departure from the US quicker and will make it easier for them to return to the US at a later time. Neither is necessarily true so make sure that your friend knows what he is getting into before having someone buy a super expensive ticket on his behalf. Unfortunately, your inquiry does not provide sufficient information to determine whether your friend will or will not be subject to an "unlawful presence" bar upon his departure from the US. Unlawful presence will be an issue if your friend has been in the US in excess of 180 days after having overstayed a period of authorized stay or otherwise being found to be in violation of his status. Unlawful presence will also accrue if your friend had arrived in the US without inspection. Now in some cases, leaving the US under an order of voluntary departure can assist a foreign national in avoiding an "unlawful presence" bar but the applicability of this "exception" is very limited. And rather than explain it, I would suggest that a consultation with a knowledgeable attorney may serve to explain the matter much better than me attempting to do it through this forum. Another concern mentioned above is the cost of a ticket. Nowadays, the Deportation Officers have become much better at permitting folks who want to leave under an order of voluntary departure to purchase their own ticket on a particular flight rather than requiring the purchase of an "open ended" ticket. Purchasing a specific flight is much easier and much cheaper than purchasing a ticket on a particular airline which permit the ticket holder to make a flight at any time - this is what I refer to as an "open ended" ticket. What I generally do in these cases is open a dialogue with the Deportation Officer so that we both understand what each other would like to accomplish and so that we are both working together towards the same goal. I never want to assume that by purchasing a ticket that the Deportation Officer is going to use it to send my client out of the US as I planned. Rather the way this is going to work is that we need to follow the instructions which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provides to us on how to do what they want on their terms. Yes it can be an incredible pain in the hind side to have to follow the instructions that ICE provides, but it is all intended on resolving matters as quickly as possible. Your friend should have some type of access to his Deportation Officer either at the detention facility or through an inquiry procedure. Likewise, the officers sometimes list their phone numbers and email addresses for the purpose of resolving concerns like this. There is no correct answer for this inquiry. Instead, the way to handle this is to contact the facility and understand the procedures which the local ICE Field Office has in place to handle issues like this. Each Field Office handles matters differently and the best way to get to where your friend wants to be is to figure out what the local ICE office and the assigned Deportation Officer want to see as a resolution to this case. Asking the assigned Immigration Officer during the hearing may also provide some contact information and guidance and I would certainly advise asking questions before taking action. An attorney would really help as this is the kind of work we do. Good luck.