How do 2025 deportation rates compare by nationality and immigration status to 2021–2024?
Executive summary
Deportations rose sharply in 2024 and remained high into 2025, with ICE reporting roughly 271,000 removals in FY2024 and multiple analysts estimating 2025 removals in the hundreds of thousands—Migration Policy Institute estimates about 340,000 ICE deportations in FY2025 while DHS and pro‑administration tallies claim over 500,000 to 527,000 formal removals plus many voluntary “self‑deportations” [1] [2] [3]. Mexico and other Latin American countries account for the largest shares of deportees in 2025, and the composition shifted toward non‑criminal and recent arrivals compared with prior years according to multiple sources [4] [5] [2].
1. Big numbers, competing tallies: why 2025 looks larger than 2021–2024
Government and independent counts differ sharply. ICE reported 271,000 removals in fiscal 2024, a decade‑high and higher than any year of Trump’s first term [1]. For 2025, DHS press releases and administration statements describe half‑million‑plus formal removals and over 1.6 million voluntary departures, yielding claims of more than 527,000 formal deportations and 2 million people leaving overall in partial 2025 tallies [3] [6]. Migration Policy Institute, using public data, estimates about 340,000 ICE deportations in FY2025—well below DHS’s most aggressive public claims—illustrating how methodological choices (who is counted as a “deportation,” whether voluntary departures are included, and which months or fiscal periods are compared) drive divergent conclusions [2] [3].
2. Who is being deported by nationality: Mexico and Central America dominate
Multiple trackers show Mexico at or near the top of nationalities deported through 2025. TRAC and other compilations indicate Mexicans comprise the largest single nationality receiving removal orders in FY2025 [4]. Third‑party summaries of ICE country lists also place Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras among the leading sources of deportees in 2025, with Mexico far ahead in raw counts in some datasets [5] [4]. These patterns reflect both proximity to the U.S. border and repatriation agreements that make returns logistically easier than for more distant nationalities [2].
3. Immigration status and criminality: a shift toward non‑criminal and recent arrivals
Sources show a larger share of deportations in 2024–2025 involve people without serious criminal convictions. ICE data and reporting indicate many removed people lack known convictions; internal documents cited in reporting found less than 10% of people in ICE custody since October 2024 had criminal offenses in some snapshots [7] [8]. TRAC’s FY2025 docket analysis notes most new cases were not criminally based and that judges ordered removal in a majority of completed cases [4]. Migration Policy Institute and Reuters reporting also describe administrations prioritizing recent border crossers and administrative returns in 2021–2024, a pattern that continued into 2025 with policy shifts making interior non‑criminal enforcement more aggressive [9] [1] [2].
4. Year‑to‑year comparison caveats: fiscal years, returns vs. removals, and voluntary departures
Comparisons across 2021–2025 require care. Many sources track fiscal years (FY), some count “returns” or expulsions separately from formal “removals,” and DHS in 2025 emphasized “self‑deportations” via programs such as Project Homecoming—numbers that some outlets treat separately from removals [1] [3] [10]. TRAC and ICE use different reporting cadences; Migration Policy Institute and independent databases apply their own inclusion rules. Any simple year‑to‑year percentage or raw comparison can therefore misstate trends if it conflates these categories [2] [4].
5. Political framing and hidden agendas in the data
Sources show clear political use of numbers. DHS and administration statements emphasize milestones—“over 2 million removed or self‑deported” or “more than 527,000 deportations”—to signal policy success, while independent analysts like MPI and Reuters stress methodological limits and produce lower estimates [6] [3] [2] [1]. Advocacy and economic analyses (Penn Wharton, EPI) model hypothetical mass‑deportation scenarios that assume far higher annual removal rates than recorded, revealing policy aims used to justify budget and operational requests [11] [12].
6. What reporting does not settle: fine‑grained nationality × status trends
Available reporting provides clear headlines—higher removals in FY2024 and many hundreds of thousands removed or pushed out in 2025—but it does not deliver a uniform, reconciled table comparing deportation counts by each nationality and by immigration status across 2021–2025 in a single source. TRAC, ICE dashboards, MPI and DHS each cover pieces of the picture; none of the sources in this set publishes a single reconciled, multi‑year nationality × status breakdown that settles every discrepancy [4] [2] [9] [3].
7. Bottom line for readers
Deportations rose to decade highs in FY2024 and continued at large scale into 2025, with Mexico and Central American nationalities constituting the largest shares and a notable proportion of removals involving non‑criminal or recent arrivals rather than only convicted offenders. Exact year‑to‑year magnitudes depend on which counts and definitions you accept; DHS and administration tallies are substantially higher than independent estimates such as MPI’s, meaning readers should treat headline totals with scrutiny and ask whether voluntary departures, returns and formal removals are being combined [1] [3] [2].