How did the 2024 and 2025 US deportation numbers compare to previous years?

1. What the official dashboards say: 2024 was a high point

ICE and DHS published new dashboards through December 31, 2024, that present arrests, detentions and removals and illustrate that fiscal year 2024 was an unusually active year for removals under the Biden administration; reporting aggregated that FY2024 removals were at a historically high level ^[1]. News outlets cite DHS figures showing nearly 271,484 removals in FY2024, which many commentators treat as a benchmark for comparisons with 2025 activity ^[2].

2. Early 2025: rapid tempo, contested totals

Multiple outlets documented a rapid tempo of removals immediately after the January 2025 inauguration: Newsweek reported DHS saying 5,693 people were removed in the two weeks from Inauguration Day to February 3, 2025, and noted November 2024 monthly removals of 48,970 as a recent Biden‑era monthly figure for context ^[2]. Reuters and other trackers reported large numbers in early 2025 but also highlighted disputes about how the early‑2025 totals compare to similar periods in 2024, saying the total “appeared to lag” removals in a comparable Biden period (Feb–May 2024) of about 257,000 ^[3].

3. Independent trackers push back on administration claims

Independent analysts and FOIA‑based trackers like TRAC challenged early 2025 claims that removals under the new administration had already surpassed Biden’s FY2024 totals, showing instead that Trump‑era removals through March 2025 were roughly 10% below Biden’s FY2024 pace on an apples‑to‑apples daily‑rate basis ^{[4] [5]}. TRAC’s analysis emphasizes methodological details — fiscal year timing, leap‑year day counts and differing publication cadences — that materially change comparisons ^{[5] [4]}.

4. Conflicting public statements and administration tallies

The Department of Homeland Security and administration officials at times released large cumulative numbers for 2025 removal activity; DHS messaging later in the year asserted more than 527,000 deportations and over 1.6 million voluntary self‑deportations for a combined “more than 2 million” departures ^[6]. Media organizations and research groups, however, continued to treat those tallies with caution and compared them against the FY2024 benchmark and semi‑monthly ICE removal series to check internal consistency ^{[6] [4]}.

5. How journalists and scholars reconcile the differences

Reuters and Newsweek show a divided picture: some early 2025 daily‑rate figures suggested a higher pace of arrests/removals than most prior years, but side‑by‑side comparisons to Biden’s busiest months in 2024 indicate 2025 did not uniformly exceed the earlier peaks ^{[2] [3]}. TRAC and migration scholars stress careful, time‑period matched comparisons (e.g., same fiscal windows or daily averages) because public statements sometimes mix fiscal and calendar periods or cumulative figures that started under the prior administration ^{[5] [4]}.

6. Qualitative context: who was being removed matters to interpretation

Beyond raw counts, reporting highlights that the composition of removals in late 2024 and early 2025 is politically important: some reporting, including Newsweek and think‑tank outputs cited by Wikipedia and long‑form pieces, documents increases in non‑criminal removals and faster processing that affects public perception and legal debates ^{[2] [7] [8]}. This context matters because similar numeric totals can mean different policy impacts depending on whether removals target people with criminal convictions, recent border crossers, or long‑term residents without serious criminal records ^{[7] [8]}.

7. Limitations, methodological pitfalls and outstanding gaps

Available sources warn that direct year‑to‑year comparisons are sensitive to (a) whether figures are fiscal‑year or calendar‑year, (b) what counts as a “removal” vs. “return” vs. “self‑deportation,” and (c) whether semi‑monthly ICE series or ad hoc administration tallies are used — TRAC and other analysts explicitly caution against apples‑to‑oranges comparisons ^{[5] [4]}. Government dashboards updated through Dec. 31, 2024, exist; selective 2025 statements and media reporting fill in parts of the picture but do not resolve every discrepancy ^{[1] [2]}.

8. Bottom line for readers

Fiscal 2024 recorded historically high removals and became the main baseline; early 2025 saw intense, high‑profile deportation activity, but independent trackers dispute claims that 2025 has uniformly exceeded 2024 when using consistent timeframes and daily‑rate comparisons ^{[1] [2] [4]}. For definitive year‑to‑year totals, rely on the ICE/DHS dashboards and careful analysts who match fiscal periods and clarify definitions rather than single public statements ^{[1] [4]}.