Where can one find the DHS or Border Patrol primary data files to reproduce presidential deportation counts?
Executive summary
Primary, machine-readable DHS and Border Patrol datasets needed to reproduce presidential deportation counts are published on multiple official DHS component sites and mirrored by independent repositories: ICE’s statistics dashboards (downloadable per-dashboard files), the DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) monthly tables and yearbook series, CBP/Border Patrol encounter and repatriation files, the DHS public data catalog and APIs, and third‑party archives such as the Deportation Data Project that package and document those raw files for researchers [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] .
1. Where the federal “primary” files live: ICE and OHSS portals
The most direct primary files for enforcement, removals, arrests, detentions and related measures are published by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics page, which provides dashboard views with a “Download” button to export the underlying data as images, PDFs or spreadsheets for each dashboard (ICE’s release covers arrests, removals, detentions and alternatives to detention) [1]. The DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) maintains monthly immigration enforcement tables—encounters, arrests, book‑outs, book‑ins, removals, returns, repatriations and parole—which OHSS says are produced from validated agency operational reports and standardized formats and are updated monthly (about a 45‑day lag) [2].
2. Border Patrol and CBP source files to reconstruct deportation counts
CBP and Border Patrol maintain encounter and repatriation definitions and datasets that are the raw source for many deportation tallies: OHSS definitions distinguish USBP (Border Patrol) and OFO (Office of Field Operations) removals and the KHSM repatriations metric, and CBP collects individual‑level data on every person it arrests or expels at the border—the Border Patrol records feed into the broader DHS reporting ecosystem [3] [6]. The Enforcement Integrated Database (EID) and related operational GUIs (EAGLE) are noted as the operational systems that generate many enforcement records cited in OHSS publications [7].
3. DHS data catalog, APIs and machine‑readable access
DHS increasingly publishes datasets via its Data Catalog and APIs and explicitly provides downloadable formats (XML/CSV/JSON/XLSX) and a Digital Government Public Data Catalog—this is the preferred portal for programmatic access and bulk downloads when available [4]. Where component sites offer dashboards (ICE) or tables (OHSS), researchers should use both the catalog/API endpoints and the component downloads to ensure capturing the authoritative raw tables [1] [2] [4].
4. Independent repositories, FOIA releases and the limits of “reproducibility”
Independent projects such as the Deportation Data Project aggregate, document and repackage ICE, CBP and EOIR files (including FOIA‑obtained releases) and provide bulk downloads and processed versions that are often easier for longitudinal work; the project warns that identifiers and table formats have changed over time and that earlier ICE identifiers may not merge cleanly with later releases [5] [8] [6] [9]. OHSS also notes that statisticians deduplicate records using unique identifiers and standardize reporting, and that public tables are cleaned and validated—meaning researchers attempting to “reproduce” headline presidential deportation counts may need to replicate OHSS/ICE cleaning rules and deduplication steps rather than just summing raw encounter rows [2].
5. Practical caveats, reconciliation and alternative viewpoints
Data users should expect practical obstacles: agency update lags (OHSS updates monthly with ~45‑day processing), different agency definitions for “removal,” “return,” “repatriation” or Title 42 expulsions, and changing identifiers across ICE releases that hinder one‑to‑one merging; these are documented by OHSS and by the Deportation Data Project and must be accounted for to faithfully reproduce an administration’s deportation counts [2] [8] [9]. Third‑party actors—advocacy groups, academic projects and journalists—may reprocess or interpret the files differently, and some repositories explicitly note their role in cleaning, annotating and seeking corrected government versions, which can reflect agendas of transparency or advocacy even as they increase accessibility [5] [8] [6].
6. Actionable next steps to reproduce counts
To reproduce presidential deportation counts, start by downloading ICE dashboard data and the OHSS monthly enforcement tables (for removals/returns/repatriations), then fetch CBP/USBP encounter datasets and OHSS Key Homeland Security Metric files; supplement with EID/EAGLE notes (where available) and consult the Deportation Data Project for bulk ZIP archives and processed versions while documenting deduplication and definition choices to match official published totals [1] [2] [3] [7] [8]. Where gaps remain in public documentation about cleaning rules or identifier mappings, note those limitations rather than assuming totals are directly reproducible from a single raw dump [2] [8].