Where can I find DHS or ICE monthly tables listing deportations by age category for 2025?
Executive summary
For 2025 monthly tables that break out removals/deportations by age category, the primary authoritative location is DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) “Immigration Enforcement and Legal Processes Monthly Tables,” which publishes standardized monthly tables drawn from DHS operational reports and updates on a regular schedule [1]. Complementary sources include ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics and independent compilations such as the Deportation Data Project, but public releases have been uneven in 2025 and researchers should expect gaps, methodological notes, and delays [2] [3] [4].
1. Where DHS publishes monthly tables and what they contain
DHS’s OHSS hosts the “Immigration Enforcement and Legal Processes Monthly Tables,” which are constructed from the Persist Dataset — DHS’s system of record — and are updated monthly on a published cadence (as of January 2025, on the third Thursday of each month) with tables that cover removals, returns, book-ins, and demographic breakdowns drawn from component operational reports [1]. The OHSS site explicitly documents that it standardizes and validates component data, uses unique identifiers to deduplicate records, and provides sourcing notes for individual tables, which is where any age-category breakdowns and their definitions would be found [1].
2. ICE’s own statistics page and its limitations
ICE posts Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics on its site and is a natural place to look for monthly deportation figures, but ICE’s public dashboards and narrative posts do not always mirror the full, validated OHSS tables and have at times stopped issuing detailed monthly tables beyond certain dates in recent reporting cycles [2] [4]. Independent analysts have noted that DHS’s detailed tabulations were inconsistently released in 2025, so ICE’s public pages may not provide a complete age-category series for every month of 2025 even though ICE operational data are the underlying source [4].
3. Independent aggregators and FOIA-derived datasets
Where government postings are late or partial, third-party projects aggregate ICE data obtained via FOIA and other means; the Deportation Data Project posts ICE arrest, detention, transport, and deportation records and provides downloadable datasets and documentation that researchers often use to reconstruct monthly patterns and demographic breakdowns [3] [5]. Other research outlets such as TRAC and policy groups (Migration Policy Institute, Prison Policy Initiative) analyze these releases and government announcements to produce estimates and commentary when official monthly tables are missing or incomplete [6] [7] [4].
4. Key caveats: timing, methodology, and political context
Users seeking age-category monthly tables should expect caveats: OHSS notes differences in component reporting methods and as-of dates that can produce discrepancies between agency postings and OHSS tables, and DHS statisticians explicitly publish sourcing notes and validation steps for the Persist Dataset [1]. Separately, political messaging from DHS and ICE (e.g., press releases touting aggregate removal counts) can emphasize headline totals while omitting disaggregated monthly tables, and independent analysts have warned that selective releases in 2025 complicated tracking of interior versus border removals [8] [4].
5. Practical next steps to obtain 2025 monthly age breakdowns
Start at DHS OHSS’s monthly tables page and download the most recent Persist-based tables and table notes for 2025 (OHSS monthly tables page) to find any “Removals by Age” or similarly titled tables and check the update schedule [1]. If the OHSS tables lack the month or age split needed, consult ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics page for any supplemental tables and then the Deportation Data Project’s downloadable ICE FOIA datasets and codebooks, which researchers use to reconstruct monthly age categories when official tables are missing [2] [3] [5]. Finally, corroborate with analyses from MPI, TRAC, or other research groups to understand methodological differences and to place numbers in the broader enforcement context [4] [6].