How many us citizens has ice deported 2025
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Available reporting and government-adjacent data show ICE and DHS reported hundreds of thousands of removals in 2025, with one analyst estimate placing ICE-conducted deportations at about 340,000 for FY2025 [1]. ICE’s semi-monthly detention and removals releases — archived and tracked by outlets like The Guardian and TRAC — show tens of thousands detained at once (about 65,135 detained as of Nov. 16, 2025) and large removal totals, but official, fully transparent counts specifically labelled “U.S. citizens deported by ICE in 2025” are not published in the available sources [2] [3] [1].
1. What the numbers reporters are citing actually measure
Most cited figures (deportations, removals, book‑outs) refer to non‑citizen “removals” recorded by ICE, not deportations of U.S. citizens; Migration Policy Institute’s estimate that “ICE conducted about 340,000 deportations in FY2025” refers to deportations of noncitizens and ICE enforcement actions broadly, not to U.S. citizens being removed [1]. News outlets and databases tracking ICE routinely draw on ICE’s detention and removals tables and semi‑monthly releases, which record people ICE processed into custody, detained, and removed — categories that presuppose noncitizen status [3] [4].
2. Are U.S. citizens being deported, and how often?
Available sources do not present a clear official count of U.S. citizens deported in 2025; the public datasets and semi‑monthly ICE dashboards focus on ICE encounters and removals of noncitizens, and reporting highlights inadvertent or “inadvertent” removals of lawful permanent residents or others but not comprehensive tallies of citizens removed [5] [6]. Some investigative pieces document specific cases where U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents faced improper removal actions or wrongful transfers — for example, news reports about inadvertent removals and efforts to bring people back [6] — but none of the provided sources give a verified national total of U.S. citizens deported.
3. Data gaps and why precise citizen‑deportation counts are missing
ICE and DHS public releases prioritize counts of arrests, detentions, and removals of noncitizens and have at times been inconsistent in updating detailed datasets; watchdogs and analysts say this hampers ability to verify claims and to check for erroneous removals [5] [4]. The Marshall Project and others note that some ICE dashboards have not been consistently updated since 2024 and that internal reporting lines and FOIA releases are the primary routes for independent tallies [5] [7]. Thus, if U.S. citizens are mistakenly deported, the incident-level reporting exists in news stories but not in a comprehensive official database in the available materials [5] [6].
4. Independent estimates and prominent figures to know
Analysts and NGOs have produced broad totals for ICE activity in FY2025: TRAC and other trackers compile detention and removal flows (TRAC reported 65,135 detained as of Nov. 16, 2025) and MPI estimated roughly 340,000 deportations in FY2025 — these are useful benchmarks for the scale of ICE operations but concern mostly noncitizen removals [2] [1] [3]. Media reporting during the 2025 enforcement surge also highlights spikes in non‑criminal detainees and large numbers of charter flights used for removals, which frame the context for errors and wrongful transfers [8] [9].
5. Competing viewpoints and political context
Government officials have touted record deportation and arrest numbers; advocates and researchers counter that data transparency is poor and that mass enforcement has produced wrongful or “inadvertent” removals and increased detention of non‑criminals [3] [5] [6]. Conservative outlets emphasize high arrest counts and agency hiring interest, while civil‑liberties organizations stress legal safeguards and oversight failures; both perspectives rely on ICE release windows and partial datasets that analysts say need independent verification [10] [11] [5].
6. What to watch next and how to verify a specific claim
To answer “how many U.S. citizens has ICE deported in 2025” with authority requires either an ICE/DHS public dataset explicitly listing removals by citizenship status or a FOIA/independent data analysis that isolates mistaken citizen removals; neither is present in the materials provided [4] [7]. For verification, seek: ICE or DHS breakdowns of removals by citizenship; FOIA responses analyzed by data projects (Deportation Data Project, TRAC); and legal filings or DOJ acknowledgments in inadvertent‑removal cases [7] [5] [6].
Limitations: the supplied sources chronicle large removal totals and many documented errors but do not publish an authoritative national total of U.S. citizens deported in 2025; available sources do not mention a compiled, verified count of citizen deportations [1] [5].