What were annual deportation totals by fiscal year for the Trump, Biden, and Obama administrations?
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Executive summary
DHS and independent analysts show wide variation by year and agency: ICE reported about 142,580 ICE removals in FY2023 and Reuters/ICE reported roughly 271,000 total deportations in FY2024, while Migration Policy estimates roughly 1.1 million deportations from FY2021 through Feb 2024 and that Trump-era deportations totaled about 1.5 million over his four years [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not provide a single consistent, administration-level annual table that neatly lists “Trump vs. Biden vs. Obama” totals without combining ICE removals, CBP returns/expulsions, and Title 42 expulsions [4] [3].
1. What the official numbers measure — removals, returns, expulsions
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE publish separate tallies for “removals” (ICE-ordered departures), “returns/expulsions” (often CBP operational returns at the border), and Title 42 expulsions used during the pandemic; combining those produces higher “deportation” totals than ICE interior removals alone. The DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics compiles removals and returns into monthly and annual tables [4], while ICE’s ERO reports focus on ICE removals and note when their dashboards exclude CBP returns and Title 42 expulsions [5] [1].
2. Trump-era (FY2017–FY2020) — scale and composition
Analysts place Trump-era totals at roughly 1.5 million deportations over his four-year term when counting removals and returns together; Migration Policy uses DHS and CBP datasets to conclude Trump’s four years saw about 1.5 million deportations [3]. ICE’s FY2019 single-year count of removals was about 267,000, a figure Migration Policy and Reuters reference in contextual comparisons [3] [2]. Note: official DHS Yearbook tables going back to 2019 are available for granular yearly figures but must be combined carefully across agencies [6].
3. Biden-era (FY2021–present) — rapid rise and shifting mix
Reporting shows a sharp rise in total deportations during the Biden administration: Reuters and BBC cite ICE’s annual report indicating about 271,000 deportations in FY2024 — the highest since 2014 and higher than any single Trump-year total [2] [7]. Migration Policy calculates roughly 1.1 million deportations from FY2021 through February 2024, putting Biden on pace to match Trump’s four-year total, while emphasizing that many of those were voluntary returns or border expulsions rather than interior ICE removals [3]. ICE’s FY2023 report separately states ICE ERO conducted 142,580 removals and that, including Title 42 expulsions and other movements, more than one million individuals were removed or expelled overall that year [1].
4. Obama-era (FY2009–FY2016) — higher ICE interior removals over time
Migration Policy and DHS data indicate higher interior removals in the Obama years relative to later years: analysts note an average of about 155,000 ICE removals per year in FY2009–2016, a higher interior-enforcement level than in subsequent years when policy and resource focus shifted toward the border [8]. DHS historical tables (Yearbook, Table 39) provide long-run removals/returns through 2019 for granular annual tallies, but combining across agencies and definitions is necessary to create administration-level summaries [6].
5. Why different outlets report different totals — methodology matters
Discrepancies arise because outlets and researchers choose different definitions: some sum ICE removals plus CBP returns and Title 42 expulsions to produce “total deportations/repatriations” (figures cited by Reuters, BBC and Migration Policy) while others report ICE-only removals [2] [7] [3] [1]. ICE itself warns its ERO dashboard does not include CBP removals/returns and that data are revised until “locked” at fiscal year close [9] [5]. Migration Policy explicitly distinguishes removals from voluntary returns at the border and calls attention to the changing composition of enforcement [3].
6. What a clean comparison would require
A reliable, administration-by-administration comparison requires: (a) deciding whether to count ICE removals only or the broader DHS “removals + returns/expulsions” metric; (b) using DHS/OHSS persist dataset tables for consistency across years; and (c) documenting Title 42-era expulsions separately because they boosted totals in 2020–2023 [4] [6] [1]. Available sources do not present a single pre-compiled, administration-level table that uniformly applies one definition across Obama, Trump and Biden — analysts create summary numbers by assembling DHS, ICE and CBP datasets [3] [2].
7. Bottom line and where to go next
If you want year-by-year, administration-level totals, consult DHS OHSS Yearbook/Table 39 and the OHSS monthly tables for removals/returns and then decide whether to include CBP returns and Title 42 expulsions; Migration Policy and Reuters provide ready interpretations and headline aggregates [6] [4] [3] [2]. Be explicit about the definition you choose: ICE-only removals will yield different and typically lower totals than “removals + returns/expulsions” used in many recent news accounts [1] [3].