How do DHS Yearbook 'removals' differ from CBP 'expulsions' and ICE 'removals'?
Executive summary
DHS’s Yearbook-style reporting groups several distinct categories of returns to other countries under the umbrella of “repatriations,” distinguishing removals (which carry administrative penalties), returns (which do not), and Title 42 expulsions (a public‑health-based measure used March 2020–May 2023) [1] [2]. In practice, “ICE removals” are administrative deportations executed after legal processes or final orders and carry consequences for reentry, while “CBP expulsions” under Title 42 were immediate public‑health expulsions at the border that did not follow the same removal/order pathway and generally did not trigger the same reentry penalties [1] [3].
1. What the DHS Yearbook counts when it says “removals”
DHS’s repatriation metrics consolidate agency data and define a “removal” as the compulsory, confirmed movement of an inadmissible or removable alien out of the United States based on a final order of removal, and DHS explicitly notes these removals carry administrative penalties that affect future reentry eligibility [1] [2]. The Yearbook/KHSM aggregates repatriations performed by ICE, CBP’s Border Patrol (USBP), and CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO), and it counts repeat repatriations of the same individual multiple times in reporting tables, which affects how totals are interpreted [1]. DHS also flags that its datasets can differ slightly between ICE and OIS/CBP due to methodology differences and that some CBP encounters since March 2020 include Title 42 expulsions [4] [3].
2. How ICE “removals” operate and what they mean legally
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) executes removals tied to final orders of removal or other Title 8 authorities, often following issuance of a Notice to Appear and immigration court process, and ICE states that a person with a final removal order will be removed by ICE [5] [4]. ICE removals typically involve detention, transfer to ICE custody for processing, and the imposition of administrative or criminal consequences for future reentry attempts; ICE’s own statistics and ERO tables are a primary source for interior removals [6] [7]. Migration Policy’s analysis underscores that ICE focuses on interior enforcement and carried out a substantial share of FY2020–24 deportations, separate from border encounters handled by CBP [8].
3. What “expulsions” by CBP meant under Title 42 (and how they differed)
CBP expulsions under the Title 42 public‑health order were administrative, rapid removals from the United States to a country of transit or origin intended to prevent disease introduction, carried out at or near the border and executed “as expeditiously as possible” without the normal Title 8 removal proceedings; DHS classifies these as expulsions distinct from removals and returns [1] [3]. Title 42 expulsions did not follow the formal removal order process and, in DHS reporting, are categorized separately in the repatriation KHSM—meaning an expulsion could remove someone from U.S. soil without the same statutory penalties that a Title 8 removal imposes [1] [2].
4. Why the same word “removal” can produce confusion in published tables
DHS publications and agency pages use overlapping terminology—“removals,” “deportations,” “expulsions,” and “returns”—and different offices produce separate statistics: ICE produces its own removals data, CBP reports encounters and expulsions (especially under Title 42), and OIS/KHSM attempts to reconcile them, which creates both double‑counting risks and methodological divergence across datasets [9] [4] [7]. The Yearbook’s approach is explicitly metric‑driven: it treats any DHS action that sends a person back to another country as a repatriation but then disaggregates by removal/return/expulsion status so readers must track definitions to understand legal consequences [1] [2].
5. Bottom line for interpreting statistics and policy debate
When a headline cites “DHS removals,” it is necessary to ask whether the figure is an OIS/KHSM consolidated repatriation total, an ICE ERO removal count (post‑order deportations), or a CBP count that may include Title 42 expulsions—because only the removal category is tied to formal removal orders and reentry penalties, whereas Title 42 expulsions were immediate public‑health returns processed at the border [1] [6] [3]. Analysts and advocates making claims about enforcement intensity or legal consequences must therefore cite the underlying dataset and definition—ICE ERO tables, CBP encounter/expulsion reports, or DHS KHSM repatriations—to avoid conflating distinct operational and legal categories [7] [4].