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Fact check: How many undocumented immigrants with criminal records have been deported by ICE in 2024?
Executive Summary
ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) reported removing 271,484 noncitizens with final orders of removal in fiscal year 2024, of whom 88,763 had charges or convictions for criminal activity; ICE's quarterly reports also cite nearly 68,000 removals in Q3 FY2024, but no single authoritative source in the provided materials isolates a definitive count labeled “undocumented immigrants with criminal records deported in 2024” beyond the ERO totals [1] [2]. Available records show ICE reports criminal convictions or charges for roughly 88.8 thousand removals in FY2024, which is the closest direct figure to the user's query [1] [3].
1. What the official ICE numbers actually state — and what they don’t say
ICE’s FY2024 Annual Report documents that ERO removed 271,484 noncitizens with final orders of removal, and of those, 88,763 had charges or convictions for criminal activity, making this the most direct official numeric answer available in the materials [1]. The quarterly Q3 FY2024 figure that ICE removed “nearly 68,000 individual noncitizens” refers to a three-month period and does not break out criminal-status subsets, so it cannot substitute for a calendar-year total of removals of people with criminal records [2]. ICE’s public releases provide removal totals and subsets defined by “charges or convictions,” but they do not uniformly label individuals as “undocumented” in the way some public debate uses that term, which can conflate immigration status, final order status, and criminal history [1] [2].
2. Reconciling “criminal” counts with the phrase “undocumented immigrants”
ICE’s administrative categories distinguish between people with final orders of removal, people apprehended without legal status, and those with criminal histories; the 88,763 figure is drawn from ERO removals with recorded charges or convictions, not from a field labeled “undocumented” [1]. The term “undocumented immigrants” is commonly used in media and policy debates but is not a precise legal category in ICE statistical tables, which rely on enforcement outcomes (detained, removed, final order) and criminal-record indicators (charges/convictions) [1] [4]. Therefore, citing 88,763 as the number of deported “undocumented immigrants with criminal records in 2024” is defensible only if the user accepts ICE’s removals-with-criminal-records as the operative measure.
3. Quarterly spikes vs. annual aggregates — different stories, different uses
ICE’s Q3 FY2024 removal spike — “nearly 68,000” removals, a 69% increase over Q3 FY2023 — signals enforcement tempo changes but cannot be extrapolated to a definitive annual criminal-removal count without the criminal-status breakout for that quarter [2]. Annual reports like FY2024’s provide aggregated criminal-removal totals that are appropriate for answering yearly questions, while quarterly releases help track enforcement trends and policy impacts; mixing the two without careful alignment risks double-counting or misrepresenting the scope of criminal removals [2] [1].
4. Congressional correspondence and the broader docket context
A July 2024 ICE cover letter to Representative Gonzales noted 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket, with 435,719 identified as convicted criminals, demonstrating a large pool of cases under ICE purview but not equating to removals in 2024 [4]. Docket totals measure the number of cases ICE lists as having criminal history; they are not the same as removals, which represent completed enforcement outcomes. Using docket counts to answer “how many were deported” would overstate removals because many cases remain pending, administratively closed, or otherwise unresolved [4].
5. Independent reporting and corroboration: what outside outlets say
Media coverage and analysis cited that ICE removed “more than 270,000 people to 192 countries” over a 12-month span and reported the 88,763 criminal-charge/conviction subset, aligning with ICE’s annual numbers and offering external corroboration of those totals [3]. Other reporting emphasizes the enforcement posture and policy shifts — including rescinding protections for certain categories — but such coverage focuses more on policy effects and individual cases than on providing a distinct alternate numeric total for 2024 criminal removals [5] [2].
6. Limitations, possible misinterpretations, and what is omitted
ICE’s published figures do not separate types of criminal convictions by severity in a consistently comparable public format, nor do they uniformly clarify whether “charges” include dismissed or non-conviction filings; this omission affects how one interprets the 88,763 figure [1]. Sources differ in period definitions (fiscal year vs. calendar year) and in whether they report removals, apprehensions, or docket entries, creating room for confusion when answering a straightforward-seeming question about “2024 deportations” of people with criminal records [2] [4].
7. Bottom line for the specific user question
Based on ICE’s FY2024 reporting, the factual, directly comparable figure is that ERO removed 271,484 noncitizens with final orders of removal during FY2024, including 88,763 who had charges or convictions for criminal activity; this 88,763 number is the most defensible answer to “how many undocumented immigrants with criminal records were deported by ICE in 2024” using ICE’s public categories, while acknowledging definitional and reporting limitations noted above [1] [3].