How do ICE deportation numbers in 2024-2025 compare to previous administrations?

1. What the official ICE numbers show: new dashboards and big quarterly totals

ICE updated Enforcement and Removal Operations dashboards that, for the first time, present arrests, detentions and removals trends through December 31, 2024; ICE’s public release highlighted that in Q3 FY2024 the agency removed nearly 68,000 noncitizens—about 1,000 more than Q2 FY2024—and that its dashboards span FY2021–Q3 FY2024 ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Annual baselines: how many deportations were typical under Biden-era years

Independent analysts summarize multiyear activity: Migration Policy Institute noted DHS carried out an average of roughly 352,000 deportations per year across FY2020–FY2024, which provides a multiyear baseline for comparing any subsequent upticks or slowdowns ^[4]. ICE’s own semi‑annual and quarterly publication cadence makes direct year‑to‑year comparisons possible but requires careful reading of fiscal-year carryovers ^{[1] [5]}.

3. Early 2025 comparisons: independent trackers flag sharp increases but note methodological caveats

Trackers and watchdogs reported dramatic early‑2025 enforcement increases. TRAC compiled ICE’s semi‑monthly releases and reported 157,948 removals cumulatively from Oct 1, 2024–May 3, 2025 and isolated 72,179 removals for Jan 26–May 3, 2025—numbers that TRAC and others used to argue removals in the Trump administration’s opening months were unusually high compared with Biden’s FY2024 pace ^[3]. Statista and press summaries cited DHS statements of spikes in monthly ICE arrests (e.g., ~20,000 in a month early in 2025 vs. under 10,000 monthly during parts of 2024), but those figures come from periodic agency releases that combine fiscal‑year carryover data and therefore need careful parsing ^[6].

4. Disagreement over interpretation: officials’ claims vs. watchdog caution

The Trump administration publicly announced enforcement milestones—claims that arrests and deportations “surpassed” FY2024 totals in a short period—while watchdogs warn fiscal‑year cumulative reporting obscures where removals occurred (i.e., carried over from Biden months in FY2025 reporting) and who was removed (criminal vs. non‑criminal) ^[3]. TRAC explicitly warns ICE’s cumulative FY reporting mixes administrations and that more granular case‑by‑case records have not been fully released to FOIA requesters, complicating direct comparisons ^[3].

5. Who is being removed: criminality and priorities are contested

Different sources emphasize different compositions of removals. ICE materials describe categories (e.g., repeat reentrants, immigration fugitives, those without convictions but violating immigration laws) in their dashboards ^[1]. Media and research outlets report large shares of non‑criminals in custody under the second Trump administration and highlight internal figures suggesting many in custody lacked violent convictions; Wikipedia cites CNN reporting under this theme and Cato Institute analyses that point to high non‑criminal percentages—though those accounts come from internal or nonpublic datasets and require independent confirmation ^[7].

6. Operational changes and scale: flights, transfers and targets of enforcement

Observers and NGOs document operational changes beyond headline removal counts. Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor and reporting in 2025 recorded substantial increases in enforcement flights and domestic “shuffle” transfers under the Trump administration—e.g., a reported 62% increase in immigration enforcement flights Jan 20–Sep 30, 2025 versus 2024—showing that enforcement intensity can be seen in logistics as well as removal totals ^[8]. The Atlantic and other outlets report internal enforcement targets (e.g., suggested goals of thousands of arrests per day), illustrating administrative priorities to scale up interior enforcement ^[9].

7. How to read these comparisons responsibly: data limits and what’s missing

Available sources make clear two limits: ICE’s semi‑monthly and fiscal‑year cumulative reporting can mix periods across administrations, requiring careful subtraction to isolate post‑inauguration activity ^[3]; and several claims about the makeup of removals rely on internal or nonpublic data that watchdogs are still parsing ^{[7] [3]}. FOIA and independent datasets (e.g., Deportation Data Project) exist but full, reconciled case‑level public records are not yet universally available for the entire 2024–25 window in the supplied sources ^{[10] [3]}.

8. Bottom line: numbers indicate a notable uptick but interpretation varies by source

Official ICE dashboards show large quarterly removal counts in FY2024 as a baseline ^{[2] [1]}. Independent trackers and advocacy monitors report substantial increases in early 2025 removals, flights and arrests compared with Biden‑era monthly averages—but they warn that fiscal‑year cumulation, carryover months and limited public case‑level detail complicate a clean apples‑to‑apples comparison ^{[3] [6] [8]}. Available sources do not mention a single reconciled total that isolates all 2025 removals exclusively from pre‑2025 carryover without analyst adjustments ^[3].