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What are the official DHS/ICE removal numbers for Cuban nationals in 2023, 2024, and 2025?
Executive summary
Public DHS/ICE reporting does not publish a simple table labeled “removals of Cuban nationals” for calendar years 2023–2025 in the materials supplied here; instead, available DHS and ICE releases and data portals discuss overall removals, removal flights, and policy changes that affect Cubans, and other outlets report flight tallies or estimates (for example, ICE said nearly 66,000 removals in FY2023 and DHS cited more than 380,000 removals/returns since May 2023 in one release) [1][2]. Specific counts for Cubans in 2023, 2024 and 2025 are not centrally listed in the provided DHS/ICE summaries; some news outlets and local trackers cite flight-by-flight totals (e.g., a Cuban‑focused count saying about 912 returned/removed by air through April 2024 and 1,200 in 2024 per aggregated reporting) but those are not the same as an official DHS/ICE country-by-country yearly removal table in the documents supplied [1][3].
1. What the official DHS/ICE sources you provided actually show
DHS and ICE releases in the supplied results discuss aggregate removals and removal flights rather than a neat year-by-year Cuban removal figure: ICE and DHS public statements cite broad totals such as “nearly 66,000 removals” in FY2023 and refer to “removal flights conducted weekly,” and a DHS news item said “since May 2023, DHS has removed or returned more than 380,000 individuals” without isolating Cubans alone [1][2][4]. ICE’s statistics portal and ICE annual report are noted as places to download arrest/removal tables and country breakdowns, but the specific country-year numbers for Cubans are not extracted in the items provided here [5][6].
2. What independent and local reporting adds — flight counts and estimates
Cuban- or region‑focused outlets compiled flight tallies and repatriation counts: one Spanish-language source cited by local trackers and other outlets reports ICE figures compiled by Café Fuerte that list 912 Cubans returned by air since April 2023 (through an unspecified date in that reporting) and another tally claims “1,200 Cubans have been deported so far in 2024” based on flight reports [3]. These flight‑level tallies are useful signals but are not identical to an official DHS annual removals table because they may omit land returns, third‑country removals, or CBP expulsions and rely on media/NGO compilation of ICE flight notices [3].
3. Why a single official “Cuban removals by calendar year” number is hard to provide from these sources
DHS/ICE reporting in the supplied documents mixes fiscal-year totals, flight‑by‑flight press releases, and programmatic counts (removals + returns + expulsions), and sometimes aggregates removals across agencies (ICE and CBP) or across fiscal periods (FY2023 figures), so extracting calendar‑year Cuban removals requires a country‑by‑country data table not present in the selection shown [1][2][5]. The OHSS “Monthly Tables” page exists as the DHS place for detailed monthly and nationality breakdowns, but the specific Cuban yearly totals for 2023–2025 are not quoted in the snippets you supplied — the portal is referenced but no exact Cuban counts were included in the results list here [7].
4. Policy changes that affect Cuban removal counts and interpretation
DHS policy moves in 2023–2025 materially change who is removable and how quickly removals proceed: implementation of CHNV parole processes in 2023 and their termination in March 2025 (affecting hundreds of thousands of parolees including Cubans) and the April 24, 2023 resumption of Cuban removal processing referenced in ICE statements mean the pool of Cubans subject to removal expanded and enforcement shifted — this complicates year‑to‑year comparisons [8][9]. DHS publicly said it resumed removal processing for Cuban nationals with final orders on April 24 (an ICE release quoted in multiple outlets), signaling renewed operational removals to Cuba after prior pauses [8][10].
5. Competing perspectives and key limitations
Government releases emphasize operational capacity (weekly removal flights and resumed Cuban removals); local Cuban‑community trackers and news outlets provide flight counts and sometimes higher‑granularity tallies [8][3]. Independent analysts and journalists warn DHS aggregate claims can be imprecise without disaggregated tables — NPR and others have highlighted gaps between DHS press totals and FOIA‑obtained removal data [11]. Importantly, the documents you provided do not include a single DHS/ICE table listing annual Cuban removals for calendar years 2023, 2024, and 2025 — so any precise per‑year number would require querying DHS/OHSS or ICE statistics pages or FOIA extracts not included here [7][5][11].
If you want, I can: (A) walk through how to extract country‑by‑country removals from the OHSS monthly tables and ICE statistics pages referenced here, or (B) compile the flight‑by‑flight reported counts (media/NGO compilations) into a provisional 2023–2025 estimate while clearly flagging methodological gaps and source limits [7][3]. Which would you prefer?