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What was the annual average of ICE arrests under the Obama administration?
Executive summary
Available sources report that ICE carried out very large numbers of arrests and removals during the Obama years, with peaks in the late 2000s and early 2010s: Migration Policy notes peaks in removals around FY2008 and high removals during 2009–2013, and TRAC/VOA reporting records 65,332 ICE detentions/removals in FY2016 (the last Obama year) while other analyses show hundreds of thousands of removals during earlier Obama years (e.g., ~389,843 removals in 2009 and a peak of 435,498 in 2013) [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not give a single, clearly stated “annual average of ICE arrests under the Obama administration” in one-line form; the data cited are annual totals and episodic counts that require caution when averaged across different years because enforcement definitions and programs changed over time [1] [4].
1. What the records actually show: annual totals, not a simple average
ICE and independent analysts publish annual removal and arrest totals rather than an official single “annual average” spanning the whole Obama presidency. For example, ICE/DHS materials emphasized record removals in FY2010 (more than 392,000 removals) and Migration Policy and Newsweek reporting cite 389,843 removals in 2009 and a peak of 435,498 in 2013, with removals falling to 240,255 by 2016 [5] [3] [1]. TRAC and VOA reporting put ICE detentions/removals at 65,332 in FY2016, reflecting how totals vary widely by year and by the metric used (detentions vs. removals vs. administrative arrests) [2].
2. Why a straight average can be misleading
Officials and analysts caution that “arrests,” “detentions,” and “removals” are different categories and that programmatic shifts altered their composition over time. Migration Policy notes that early Obama-years peaks reflected intensive fingerprint-matching through programs such as Secure Communities that generated many interior removals; later Obama guidance narrowed priorities and reduced some categories of enforcement, so raw year-to-year totals are not measuring a steady state [1] [6]. ICE’s own statistics separate Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrests and define custody/at-large distinctions, which complicates aggregation into a single per-year average [4].
3. Independent data points you can use to estimate
If you want concrete numbers to build an average yourself, the available sources give several anchor points: ICE/DHS said FY2010 removals were about 392,000 (with roughly half convicted criminals) [5]; Newsweek and Migration Policy cite 389,843 removals in 2009 and a peak of 435,498 in 2013, declining to about 240,255 by 2016 [3] [1]. TRAC reported 65,332 detained and deported by ICE in FY2016—an outlier figure in the sense that it captures a different subset [2]. Cato and TRAC analyses also provide multi-month arrest totals (e.g., 437,671 ICE arrests in the first 17 months of Obama’s term), useful for short-term averages but not a presidential-term annual average without adjustments [7].
4. Competing interpretations and political context
Different organizations emphasize different aspects: DHS/ICE press releases in 2010 framed the numbers as “record-breaking” enforcement achievements focused on convicted criminals [5]. Advocacy groups such as the ACLU characterize Obama-era deportations as severe and harmful [8]. Think tanks and researchers (Migration Policy, TRAC, Cato) highlight that enforcement peaked in the early Obama years and then narrowed due to policy guidance—so whether one describes Obama as the “deporter-in-chief” depends on which years and which metrics are emphasized [1] [7] [2].
5. Limitations and what’s not found in current reporting
Available sources do not provide a single, authoritative “annual average of ICE arrests under Obama” spanning 2009–2016 in one computed figure; they instead offer annual totals, program descriptions, and multi-month snapshots that must be harmonized before computing an average [1] [4] [2]. If you want a precise average, you would need to choose the metric (administrative arrests, custodial arrests, or removals), gather year-by-year counts from ICE’s statistics page or DHS annual reports, and then compute the mean—steps not completed in the sources provided here [4].
6. Practical next steps if you want a single number
Decide which metric matters most for your question (ERO administrative arrests vs. removals vs. ICE encounters). Then pull year-by-year counts from ICE’s statistics portal or DHS annual reports (ICE ERO statistics are centralized on the agency site) and compute an arithmetic mean for 2009–2016; Migration Policy and TRAC can help interpret policy-driven shifts that would affect your choice [4] [1] [2]. Available reporting here supplies annual anchors (e.g., FY2009, FY2010, FY2013, FY2016 totals) that you can include or exclude depending on the analytic approach [5] [3] [2].
If you want, I can compute an annual average for a specific metric (removals or ERO arrests) using the year-by-year ICE/DHS numbers—tell me which metric and I will extract and average the years using the available ICE statistics [4].