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How do ICE removals under Trump compare to Obama and Biden administrations?
Executive summary
ICE removals under Obama were highest in raw totals during his presidency (peaking at roughly 432,000–435,000 in a single year and totaling millions across eight years) while Trump’s and Biden’s patterns differ by policy emphasis and timing: Trump’s first term deportations lagged Obama’s but Trump’s second-term surge put ICE on pace in 2025–2026 to reach the highest annual totals since Obama, though still short of some stated targets [1] [2] [3]. Reporters and analysts stress that comparisons depend on which measure you use (border expulsions, interior ICE removals, daily averages, fiscal-year totals) and on changing policies such as Title 42 and enforcement priorities [2] [4] [5].
1. Numbers matter — but which numbers?
Different outlets and analysts point to different counting methods. Syracuse/ICE-linked tallies show Obama-era removals peaking in 2013 around the 430k–435k mark and more than 3 million removals across his two terms [1] [6]. By contrast, internal ICE figures and tracking groups find Biden-era removals rose in FY 2024 to record levels for his presidency (e.g., ~329k in 2024) and that Trump’s second term quickly produced a wave of removals in early 2025 that put ICE “on track” for 300k+ in a year — the most since Obama but still well below a 1 million goal cited by officials [1] [3] [7].
2. Policy shifts change the composition of removals
Obama-era enforcement prioritized felons and national-security threats, a framework that concentrated removals on people with more serious criminal histories [5] [8]. The Trump administration narrowed prosecutorial discretion and broadened enforcement priorities so fewer categories were sheltered, which both increased interior arrests in some periods and, in other accounts, led to different detention/use-of-space trade-offs that affected who was removed [5] [8]. The Biden interim guidance returned toward an Obama-like prioritization, though later operational choices (e.g., parole, expedited removal changes) also affected totals [5] [2].
3. The pandemic, Title 42 and border dynamics complicate trends
Several reports emphasize that pandemic-era tools such as Title 42 produced large numbers of rapid expulsions that can inflate “removals” without the same due-process or interior-ICE arrest dynamics of other years; both Trump and Biden used those authorities at different moments, making year-to-year comparisons blunt if not adjusted for expulsions versus formal ICE removals [2]. News outlets warn that border encounter surges and shifts in CBP/ICE roles (agents pulled to the border) also reshaped interior removal counts [2].
4. Daily averages and short-term surges versus sustained capacity
Analysts tracking semi-monthly ICE reports found that short bursts of high removal rates under a new administration can create initial spikes that are hard to sustain; one tracker concluded Trump’s early 2025 daily removal rate was below Biden’s FY 2024 daily average once the initial push subsided [4]. Other reporting relying on internal ICE figures says Trump’s first six months back in office recorded nearly 150,000 removals — an average pushing toward 800 per day and a trajectory above Biden’s recent years [3]. Both narratives appear in the record: spike-then-slowdown versus sustained ramp-up, depending on the dataset and period chosen [4] [3].
5. Who was removed changed over time — quality vs. quantity debate
Former Obama ICE officials and some commentators argued the metric should be “quality” of removals (priority criminals) rather than raw counts; critics of Trump say his push emphasized mass actions and interior arrests that were less targeted, whereas defenders point to higher totals of criminal removals in some Trump-era datasets [6] [8]. Migration Policy Center and others note Trump’s ambitions were sometimes constrained by state/local resistance and operational limits, complicating claims of an immediate “mass deportation” fulfillment [9].
6. Limits of current reporting and how to read claims
DHS and ICE reporting practices changed over time; some outlets note DHS stopped publishing regular enforcement statistics after certain points, and semi-monthly reporting windows can blur administration handover dates, making precise apples-to-apples comparisons difficult [4] [3]. When a source asserts a definitive ranking or absolute total, check whether it counts border expulsions, interior ICE removals, fiscal-year vs. calendar-year numbers, or cumulative multi-year totals — the cited stories show these distinctions drive divergent conclusions [2] [4].
Conclusion — what to take away
Available reporting shows Obama presided over the largest single-year ICE removal totals in the modern era, Biden achieved high removal counts late in his term including FY 2024, and Trump’s return prompted major early surges in 2025 that put ICE on track for the most removals since Obama though not necessarily reaching some of the administration’s loftier targets; readers must weigh which datasets and enforcement categories providers used before accepting simple “more” or “less” assertions [1] [3] [4].