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Did ICE deport refugees or asylees in 2025 and how many?
Executive Summary
ICE and related agencies did carry out removals in 2025 that included people who had sought asylum or held refugee-related claims, but precise counts of how many refugees or asylees were deported remain contested because public datasets are incomplete and independent trackers report different metrics. Independent monitors documented thousands of enforcement flights and hundreds of thousands of removals by mid‑2025, and policy changes — notably the Supreme Court clearance of third‑country removals on June 23, 2025 — correspond with an intensification of transfers that advocacy groups say included asylum‑seekers; however, official ICE quarterly statistics available to the public lag behind and do not provide a clean tally of removals specifically labeled “refugees” or “asylees” for 2025 [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What advocates and trackers claim — startling flight counts and individual cases that signal asylum removals
Independent trackers focused on enforcement logistics reported a sharp rise in removals activity in 2025, with ICE Flight Monitor documenting 8,877 enforcement flights between January 20 and September 30, 2025, including 1,464 flights in September alone, and describing practices such as restraints and third‑country transfers that concern rights groups [1]. Those reports include named case examples — for instance, Iranian nationals identified as political dissidents and converts who had sought asylum in the United States — which advocates cite as evidence that people who had sought protection were being removed [1]. Advocacy reporting also details removals to countries deemed unsafe, like South Sudan, and counts of specific group transfers — around 350 to Panama, 200 to Costa Rica, five to eSwatini, and eight to South Sudan — which suggest targeted, large‑scale movements that encompassed vulnerable claimants [2]. These independent sources frame removals as operationally intensive and often executed with minimal notice.
2. What official ICE data shows — gaps, lagging releases, and limited public breakdowns
Government data published by ICE and associated enforcement statistics do not provide a straightforward, up‑to‑date count of refugees or asylees deported in 2025. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics and monthly enforcement tables are updated quarterly but, as of public releases noted in mid‑2025, the datasets extended only through December 31, 2024 or were under review, leaving a gap for 2025 removals and preventing clear verification of asylum‑status removals from official tallies [4] [5]. ICE data systems and the public removals table collected by third‑party projects contain records from January 1, 2025 onward but carry documented limitations and inconsistencies that complicate categorization of deported populations into legal statuses such as “refugee” or “asylee” [6]. The absence of a labeled, authoritative 2025 breakdown forces researchers to triangulate from operational logs and investigative reporting.
3. Broader removal counts and scale indicators — hundreds of thousands and system strain
Several reporting outlets and analyses place 2025 removals at very high levels, with some aggregations suggesting over a million people removed through 2025 or hundreds of thousands in earlier months of the year, and ICE itself recording nearly 200,000 removals in a seven‑month span reported by mid‑2025 [3] [7]. These aggregate figures reflect broad removal activity across many categories — visa overstays, criminal removals, and administrative returns — and do not isolate refugees or asylees. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of removals, record detention capacity use, and a rise in deaths in custody indicate a system under heightened enforcement pressure, making it plausible that asylum seekers and those with refugee claims were among the removed, even if they cannot be separately enumerated in public tables [3] [8].
4. Legal and policy turning points — third‑country removals and contested legality
Policy changes in 2025 materially affected removal practices: the Supreme Court decision on June 23, 2025 cleared the way for third‑country removals, and the administration moved quickly to expand transfers to countries where many deportees had no ties, according to advocacy reports [2]. Rights organizations flagged potential breaches of obligations under the Convention against Torture and other protections, citing short notice or no notice and removals to countries with severe human‑rights records. Government statements stress law enforcement prerogatives and deterrence aims, while advocates emphasize humanitarian and due‑process failures; both frames are present in the record and point to contested legal and ethical terrain surrounding 2025 removals [2] [8].
5. Bottom line for the question posed — confirmed practice, but no single authoritative count for refugees/asylees
The available evidence confirms that ICE conducted removals in 2025 that included people who had sought asylum or had refugee‑related claims, and multiple independent trackers and reports document thousands of flights and hundreds of thousands of removals overall; however, no authoritative public dataset currently provides a precise 2025 count of deported refugees or asylees due to reporting lags, dataset limitations, and differing definitions used by agencies and trackers [1] [4] [6]. Further clarity will require ICE to publish detailed, up‑to‑date removals breakdowns by immigration status or independent researchers to reconcile operational flight and removal logs with case‑level asylum determinations.