How do ICE deportation numbers under Trump compare to the Obama and Biden administrations?
Executive summary
ICE and DHS data and contemporary reporting show deportation/removal activity rose markedly under the second Trump administration’s early months compared with the end of the Biden term, but long‑running totals still leave Obama’s eight years as the largest single presidency tally (Obama ~5.3 million total removals across two terms) while reporting differences (ICE vs. CBP, “removals” vs. “returns”) complicate direct comparison [1] [2] [3].
1. How the agencies report: removals, returns, ICE vs. CBP
DHS and ICE publish multiple series: “removals” (formal deportations by ICE or CBP), “returns” or voluntary departures at the border, and expulsions under Title 42 or other authorities; Migration Policy stressed Biden-era numbers were driven heavily by voluntary returns at the border while ICE handles most interior removals, making apples‑to‑apples comparisons difficult without breaking down which agency and removal type is counted [2] [4].
2. Short‑term surge under Trump’s second term — early figures
Newsweek and ICE briefings documented an early spike after January 20, 2025: ICE said roughly 28,319 interior removals between Jan. 20 and March 11, 2025 (about 3,887 per week), and DHS reported 5,693 removals in the two weeks from Inauguration Day to Feb. 3, 2025; other semi‑monthly ICE releases and trackers showed rapidly rising cumulative counts in early 2025 [5] [1] [6].
3. Interior vs. border removals — who is counted matters
Analysts and reporting emphasize that CBP handles many border returns and expulsions while ICE handles interior arrests and removals; several outlets noted high CBP removal numbers in Trump’s first six months (CBS/Newsweek reporting that CBP recorded over 112,000 removals in that period) and that combining ICE+CBP inflates a presidency’s deportation headline compared with isolating ICE interior removals [3] [5].
4. Criminality and the changing profile of who is deported
Multiple investigations documented a notable shift toward more non‑criminal arrests under the 2025 Trump enforcement posture: The Texas Tribune found arrests of people without convictions rose from 42% under Biden to 59% under Trump in its Texas data, and CBS highlighted a roughly 2,000% increase in detainees without criminal records in federal detention since January 2025 [7] [8]. Some officials asserted the focus remained on criminal aliens, but the data show a growing share of non‑criminals among those detained and removed [8] [7].
5. Longer‑run context: Obama and Biden compared
Obama’s two terms remain the largest aggregate era for removals reported in these sources — Newsweek and other reporting cite roughly 5.3 million removals across Obama’s presidency — while Migration Policy and others note Biden’s administration saw high totals as well, but with an unusual tilt toward voluntary returns and border processing rather than interior ICE removals [1] [2].
6. Conflicting tallies and transparency gaps
Reporters flagged gaps and inconsistencies in public data after Trump took office: Newsweek and other outlets documented lapses in updates to ICE’s public dashboards and emphasized that different trackers (ICE semi‑monthly releases, TRAC, DHS monthly tables) sometimes start fiscal‑year cumulative counts at different moments, which complicates direct numeric comparisons [5] [6] [4].
7. What advocates, think tanks and officials say — competing narratives
Conservative officials and some analysts argue the 2025 surge represents a return to more aggressive interior enforcement and that a substantial share of removals are of people with criminal records; independent trackers and civil‑rights advocates counter that the fastest growth has been in non‑criminal “collateral” arrests and that counting CBP expulsions alongside ICE removals inflates claims that one administration “deported more” [9] [8] [7].
8. Bottom line and caveats for readers
Available sources make clear deportations/removals increased sharply in early 2025, including both ICE interior removals and large CBP‑handled returns/expulsions, but comparing administrations requires care: differences in definitions (removal vs. return), agency responsibilities (ICE vs. CBP), fiscal‑year accounting, and incomplete public updates mean simple headline comparisons (e.g., “X more deportations than Y”) can be misleading without specifying what exactly is being counted [2] [6] [5].
Limitations: this summary relies only on the cited contemporaneous reporting and public agency tallies; available sources do not provide a single reconciled, long‑term table breaking down interior ICE removals versus CBP returns across all years for direct one‑to‑one presidential comparison [4] [6].