What were the annual interior removals carried out by ICE during FY2009–FY2016 and how do they compare to FY2020–FY2024?
Executive summary
A clear, apples-to-apples time series of ICE’s “interior removals” is not fully present in the documents provided, because ICE’s public statistics and third‑party datasets separate removals by process (ERO removals vs. expedited removals handled by CBP) and because ICE “locks” counts at year‑end in ways that change reporting [1] [2]. What the available records do show is that total ICE removals peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s (e.g., FY2009 and FY2013), that ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) reported 271,484 removals in FY2024, and that interior arrests explicitly counted as ICE administrative arrests were substantially smaller in the mid‑2010s (65,332 ICE administrative arrests in FY2016) compared with later aggregate ERO removals [3] [4] [1].
1. Historical baseline: removals in the FY2009–FY2016 window
Federal reporting shows removal totals were already high by FY2009, when removals reported to Congress reached 393,457, and remained elevated through the early 2010s with a recorded 438,421 removals in FY2013 [3]; those figures are systemwide removals and mix border and interior processes rather than a clean measure of ICE‑initiated interior removals. ICE’s archived reporting documents and ERO summaries treat “interior” enforcement as a distinct activity but do not present a single consolidated public table in the supplied snippets that lists annual ICE interior‑initiated removals for each year from FY2009 through FY2016 [5] [1]. The one concrete interior enforcement datapoint visible in the supplied record is that ICE reported 65,332 administrative arrests that resulted in removals (or were counted toward ICE’s interior enforcement tally) in FY2016, a figure used by ICE to characterize the agency’s interior arrest activity that year [1].
2. The mid‑decade shift and FY2017 as a hinge year
ICE’s own summary for FY2017 records 226,119 removals and notes that the share of removals arising from ICE arrests rose from 27 percent in FY2016 (65,332 administrative arrests) to 36 percent in FY2017 (81,603 removals tied to ICE arrests), a change the agency itself linked to policy shifts and prioritization under the new Administration at the time [1]. That internal shift shows how annual totals can mask compositional change: the same—or similar—aggregate number of removals can reflect more activity by ICE inside the country in one year and more removals that originate from border processing in another [1] [3].
3. FY2020–FY2024: larger ERO totals but different drivers
ICE’s FY2024 annual report states that ERO removed 271,484 individuals in FY2024 and that a substantial share of removals that year were people first encountered by CBP at the Southwest border and later turned over for removal processing, a dynamic ICE emphasized in its public release [4]. Quarterly reporting from FY2024 shows the scale of that operational tempo—ICE reported nearly 68,000 removals in the third quarter of FY2024 alone [6]. Analysts tracking deportation datasets warned that published removal numbers sometimes exclude expedited removals and voluntary returns processed entirely by border authorities and that ICE’s datasets have had revisions and exclusions that affect year‑to‑year comparisons [2].
4. Why direct comparisons are tricky—and what can be said with confidence
Comparing “annual interior removals carried out by ICE” across FY2009–FY2016 and FY2020–FY2024 requires careful definition: ICE’s public removals counts mix ERO removals (which include many post‑border transfers), expedited removals handled by CBP, and returns; ICE also “locks” its annual counts at year‑end in ways that exclude some late confirmations [1]. From the supplied sources, it is defensible to say total removals were high in FY2009–FY2013 (with documented national totals such as 393,457 in FY2009 and 438,421 in FY2013) and that ERO removals in FY2024 reached 271,484—while interior administrative arrests that directly generated removals were on the order of tens of thousands in the mid‑2010s (65,332 in FY2016) and rose in FY2017 as ICE put greater emphasis on interior arrests [3] [1] [4]. What the present sources do not provide is a clean, year‑by‑year table limited strictly to ICE‑originated interior removals for every fiscal year requested without mixing other removal categories [5] [7].
5. Alternative views and data caveats
Advocacy and policy organizations interpret the same ICE reports differently: some emphasize that FY2024’s high ERO removal total reflects extraordinary border‑origin caseloads handed to ICE rather than a dramatic spike in interior policing (ICE’s own framing), while other commentators argue that interior enforcement remained inadequate or uneven depending on the administration’s priorities [4] [8]. Independent data projects have documented instances where ICE datasets excluded expedited removals or where early releases contained inconsistent fiscal‑year observations, advising caution when reading short‑term spikes or dips [2].