How have deportation rates for lawful permanent residents changed in recent years?
Executive summary
Deportation activity has risen in recent years, driven by surges in removals and policy shifts, but available public data do not provide a simple, documented time series isolating lawful permanent residents (LPRs) from other categories of removals; DHS and ICE reporting distinguish categories and provide totals, while analyses and projections suggest increases in removals overall and pressure on interior enforcement that could raise LPR removals indirectly [1] [2] [3]. Multiple sources indicate enforcement intensified in 2024–2025 and into 2026 with rising detention and removal capacities, though reporting cautions that most recent datasets break down removals by enforcement context (border vs. interior) rather than by immigration status in a way that is readily comparable across years [3] [4] [2].
1. Rising removals overall, but composition matters
Federal datasets and expert analyses document an uptick in removals and enforcement intensity through 2024–2026, with Brookings modeling scenarios that assume hundreds of thousands of removals in 2026 (for instance, a low‑immigration scenario posits roughly 510,000 removals in 2026) and noting daily removal rates increased in late 2024–2025 [3]. DHS and ICE publish monthly and annual enforcement tables and yearbooks that record removals, arrests, detentions and related lifecycle measures, demonstrating that headline removal totals have been tracked closely though the share that are LPRs is not always separately summarized in public tables or in the snippets available here [1] [5].
2. Interior enforcement surged, shifting where removals originate
Analysts and ICE statistics show a recent shift toward more interior removals (rather than exclusively border expulsions), with fiscal‑year 2024 data indicating the majority of ICE removals were of recent border crossers but other evidence points to increased interior activity in 2025—changes that could elevate the risk for LPRs who become enforcement targets in the interior [3] [2]. Migration Policy Project reporting highlights a dramatic expansion of detention capacity and enforcement resources early in 2025–2026 (for example, average daily ICE detainee numbers rising from roughly 39,000 to nearly 70,000), a capacity change that, other things equal, makes more interior removals feasible [4].
3. Law, policy and capacity are pushing removal numbers higher in projections
The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts estimate that policy changes increasing detention and adjudication capacity will produce materially higher orders of removal and more actual removals in the 2026–2029 window, projecting tens or hundreds of thousands of additional removals tied to more judges and detention beds—effects that could increase removals of noncitizens with established legal statuses if those cases arise [6]. The White House and administration memos emphasize that LPRs are legally more difficult to remove than nonimmigrants but also note that policy scrutiny of legal admissions and reviews of certain national‑security related cases intensify enforcement focus on those with permanent status in some contexts [7].
4. Data gaps: LPR‑specific removal rates are not clearly trended in public snippets
Public monthly tables and yearbooks from DHS and ICE categorize removals by many attributes, but the accessible summaries here do not provide a consistent, clearly trended time series solely for lawful permanent residents across recent years; the OHSS LPR flow reports describe who becomes an LPR, while ICE and DHS enforcement tables report removals, but linking those streams to produce an LPR‑only deportation rate over time requires combining datasets and possibly FOIA or internal counts not included in these snippets [8] [1] [5].
5. Who is most at risk and why LPRs matter legally and politically
Legal commentators and advocacy summaries note that while most deportations target noncitizens who entered without inspection or recent border crossers, LPRs face removal risk primarily when they have disqualifying criminal convictions, persistent immigration violations, or when administrative or national‑security reviews find grounds for denaturalization or inadmissibility; denaturalization cases have been rare historically but have increased in recent enforcement cycles, underscoring a potential pathway to making long‑standing lawful residents deportable [9] [2] [10].
6. Competing narratives and implicit agendas in reporting
Government projections and White House statements frame increased removals as national‑security and rule‑of‑law measures, while watchdogs and some academic sources warn about humanitarian, legal and economic costs and note that media political claims about mass deportations sometimes overstate capabilities versus legal constraints; policy sources may emphasize capacity gains and goals, whereas independent analysts highlight the legal hurdles to removing long‑term LPRs and data limitations on exactly how many LPRs have been removed year‑to‑year [7] [11] [4].