What was the average number of veteran deportations per year under Obama and Trump?
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Executive summary
Public reporting and official DHS aggregates show wide disagreement on totals, but multiple reputable accounts conclude Obama-era removals (deportations and related expulsions) averaged substantially more per year than Trump’s first-term totals. Newsweek and Migration Policy note Obama oversaw roughly 2.8–3.2 million removals over eight years (about 350,000–400,000 per year) while Trump’s first term recorded roughly 2 million removals across four years (about 500,000 per year by that math) — however reporters and trackers emphasize different metrics (removals, returns, expulsions) and timeframes, producing varying annual averages [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Counting deportations: different definitions change the headline
Journalists and analysts warn that “deportations” is not a single, consistently defined metric: DHS reports removals, returns and expulsions separately and some outlets combine them; that practice produces large differences in totals and annual averages [4] [5]. Migration Policy explicitly frames Obama’s record in terms of removals and targeting priorities rather than a simple tally, and Newsweek notes that the underlying DHS categories and agency roles complicate direct comparisons [5] [1].
2. What the major reports say about Obama’s annual average
Several sources quantify Obama-era removals in the multi‑millions. Newsweek’s reporting cites roughly 2.8 million removals across Obama’s tenure, and other outlets and analyses cite figures ranging up to about 3.2 million; spread across eight years that yields average annual removals in the neighborhood of 350,000–400,000 [1] [6] [2]. Migration Policy emphasizes that Obama’s program shifted priorities over time (higher early in his presidency, lower later) even while overall removals exceeded many predecessors [5].
3. What the major reports say about Trump’s annual average
Reporting on Trump’s first term varies by which years and metrics are combined. Some aggregations show about 2.0 million removals for the 2017–2020 period, implying roughly 500,000 per year when averaged over four fiscal years; other trackers and watchdog groups say Trump’s second-term actions (2025 onward) produce rising arrest numbers but removals still “track below” Obama’s peaks [4] [3] [1]. TRAC and Wikipedia-based summaries caution that Trump administration claims of record deportations often outpaced what ICE’s published statistics supported [7] [8].
4. Apparent contradiction: Obama “more” vs. Trump “ramping up”
Multiple outlets reach different headlines because of choices about timeframe and metric. PolitiFact and WLRN reported Obama deported more people than Trump when comparing like-for-like DHS removals and returns over their terms [4]. Yet Newsweek and other 2025-era reporting document that Trump’s renewed enforcement in his second term increased removals and arrests rapidly, though still generally “tracking below” Obama’s highest yearly totals [1] [3].
5. What to take away about average annual veteran deportations specifically
Available sources do not mention “veteran deportations” as a separately reported category; DHS and the cited journalism discuss aggregate removals (removals/returns/expulsions) without isolating veterans [1] [5] [3]. Therefore there is no sourced figure here for “average number of veteran deportations per year” under either president in the provided reporting — that specific breakdown is not found in current reporting [1] [5] [3].
6. Methodological limits and competing perspectives
Analysts warn that comparing presidents by raw totals obscures policy differences: Obama’s removals peaked earlier in his presidency and emphasized recent arrivals and criminal convictions; Trump’s campaigns and some officials framed later actions as “mass deportations,” but watchdogs like TRAC and independent reporters flagged gaps between rhetoric and ICE-published removals [5] [7] [1]. Some local outlets and advocacy pieces offer higher cumulative counts for Obama (3 million+), while other mainstream analyses place him near 2.8 million — the difference reflects inclusion or exclusion of returns and expedited expulsions [2] [1].
7. Bottom line for your question
If you mean average annual removals for the whole presidencies using common DHS aggregates, available reporting places Obama in the roughly 350,000–400,000 removals-per‑year range across 2009–2016 and places Trump’s first‑term removals at roughly 500,000 per year when 2 million removals are divided by four years — but those numbers depend on which categories are counted and which sources you accept [1] [4] [2]. If you meant veterans specifically, current reporting does not provide that breakdown and therefore no sourced average can be stated [1] [5] [3].
Limitations: figures here derive from the cited news reports, watchdog analyses and policy research; differences among them reflect inconsistent DHS categories and reporting practices rather than simple arithmetic errors in any single source [5] [7] [1].