How many u.s. citizens have been deported this year?
Executive summary
Available sources report vastly different tallies of removals in 2025: the Department of Homeland Security claimed “more than 527,000” removals as of Oct. 27, 2025 [1], the Migration Policy Institute estimated about 340,000 ICE deportations for fiscal year 2025 [2], and reporting during the November 2025 government shutdown cited roughly 56,000 deportations over the shutdown period (Oct. 1–Nov. 15) [3]. None of the provided sources give a single authoritative count of how many U.S. citizens — specifically — were deported this year; some reporters and advocacy groups say the government is not tracking detained or removed citizens [4] [5].
1. Conflicting toplines — government claims vs. independent estimates
DHS’s public claim is the largest: a department release asserted “more than 527,000” removals by Oct. 27, 2025 across agencies (ICE and CBP combined) [1]. Independent analysts at the Migration Policy Institute, working from the last publicly available government figures, estimated ICE alone carried out about 340,000 deportations in FY2025 [2]. News outlets and watchdog coverage note the administration’s data releases became more sporadic in 2025, complicating external verification [2] [6].
2. Shutdown surge and short windows can skew perceptions
Reporting on the federal government shutdown (Oct. 1–Nov. 15, 2025) highlighted a concentrated flurry of enforcement: The Guardian cited agency data saying roughly 56,000 people were deported during that shutdown period alone [3]. That single-window figure does not answer the year-to-date question by itself but shows how short intervals of intensified operations can produce headline numbers that differ from fiscal-year aggregates [3].
3. Who counts as a ‘deportation’ — definitional and agency differences
Sources signal that counts vary by agency (ICE vs. CBP), by type of removal (voluntary departures, expedited removals, formal orders of removal), and by whether the figure is fiscal-year or calendar-year — all of which produce different totals [2] [7]. MPI’s ~340,000 figure for ICE explicitly includes people with formal removal orders and detainees who took voluntary departures [2]. DHS’s headline “removals” number appears to sum actions across components and includes voluntary self-deportations driven by administrative programs [1].
4. U.S. citizens: no definitive count in available reporting
Multiple sources report troubling incidents of U.S. citizens detained or even removed, and watchdog reporting says the government does not systematically track detained or missing citizens; Wikipedia and reporting cite the absence of a government tally as of October 2025 [4] [5]. The Government Accountability Office previously found up to 70 U.S. citizens were deported by ICE between 2015 and 2020, but current reporting in these sources says the U.S. government was not tracking the number of detained or missing citizens in 2025 [5]. Therefore, available sources do not provide an authoritative number of U.S. citizens deported in 2025.
5. Legal fights, court interventions and political framing affect the numbers
Judicial pushback has limited some rapid-removal policies: a federal appeals court blocked expansion of an expedited deportation process in November 2025 [8], and over 200 judges had intervened to order release or bond hearings for people facing deportation [9]. Those legal constraints, and the administration’s public messaging (White House summaries and DHS releases), create incentives for both higher reported enforcement tallies and for critics to question accuracy or due process [10] [9].
6. How to interpret these figures and what’s missing
The variance between DHS’s 527,000+ claim and MPI’s ~340,000 estimate underscores that different methodologies and narrower vs. broader definitions drive disparate totals [1] [2]. Key missing pieces in the available reporting: a consistent, up-to-date public data feed from DHS/ICE enumerating removals by citizenship status and a government-maintained count of detained/removed U.S. citizens [2] [5]. Absent that, observers must rely on agency press releases, independent estimates, and episodic reporting about specific enforcement waves [1] [2] [3].
7. Competing narratives and implied agendas
DHS and the White House promote high removal numbers as evidence of enforcement success [1] [10]. Independent researchers and civil‑liberties groups emphasize judicial rulings and documented errors — including wrongful detention or removal of citizens — to argue the policies lack safeguards [9] [5]. Readers should weigh the agencies’ incentives to showcase volume against watchdogs’ incentives to highlight harms and data gaps.
Conclusion: If your question is strictly “How many U.S. citizens have been deported this year?” the sources provided do not supply a definitive figure; reporting indicates the federal government is not publicly tracking or publishing a clear count of citizens deported in 2025 [4] [5]. For aggregate removal totals in 2025, consult DHS’s Oct. 27 statement (527,000+) and MPI’s FY2025 ICE estimate (~340,000) and treat both as different measures, not identical claims [1] [2].