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What total number of removals (deportations) did DHS/ICE report under the Trump presidency, including fiscal year breakdowns?
Executive summary
DHS/ICE public statements and allied outlets claim hundreds of thousands of removals under the second Trump administration — DHS announced figures such as “more than 527,000” and “over 515,000” removals by late 2025 [1] [2] while White House releases put an earlier April 2025 cumulative number at about 139,000 removals [3]. Independent analysts and watchdogs flag inconsistent reporting, alternative estimates (e.g., ~72,000 or ~140,000 at different moments), and gaps in official public datasets that make a single, definitive total and precise fiscal-year breakdown hard to confirm from available reporting [4] [5] [6].
1. What DHS and ICE publicly claim — big, shifting headline totals
The Department of Homeland Security and allied White House messaging have repeatedly released large, headline-grabbing totals: a DHS release on October 27, 2025 said “more than 527,000 illegal aliens removed” under Trump [1], DHS messaging in September 2025 claimed “over 2 million illegal aliens out of the United States” when combining removals and self-deportations and suggested a pace toward “nearly 600,000” deportations in a year [7]. Fox News and other pro-administration outlets quoted DHS/administration figures of “over 515,000” deportations since January and projected annual targets like 600,000 or even 1 million removals [2] [8] [9].
2. Contradictions and earlier, smaller administration counts
Administration messaging itself showed much smaller counts at earlier points: a White House post in April 2025 asserted “139,000 deportations” since Trump took office [3]. Independent trackers and watchdog groups reported different totals for overlapping periods — for example, TRAC concluded that some early administration claims were grossly exaggerated and put a figure “around 72,000 removals” for a period the administration had claimed was far higher [4]. The existence of multiple different administration-era claim lines demonstrates inconsistency in what is being tallied and when [3] [4].
3. Why precise fiscal-year breakdowns are hard to verify from available sources
DHS and ICE reporting practice changed under the new administration and outside researchers note that DHS “stopped issuing detailed statistical reports” in the same way as before, complicating independent verification [10]. Migration Policy Institute and other analysts provide multi-year averages (DHS averaged ~352,000 deportations/year in FY2020–24, ICE averaged ~146,000/year), but these are aggregate historic baselines, not Trump-term fiscal-year line items [11] [12]. Sources repeatedly say data publishing has been inconsistent under the Trump administration, limiting the ability to produce an audited FY-by-FY breakdown from public tables alone [13] [6] [10].
4. Independent media and watchdog estimates — lower and more cautious totals
Investigative outlets and researchers present more cautious or lower totals for specific windows: TRAC and other analysts found that some early claims of “135,000 removals in 100 days” were inflated and suggested realized numbers were much lower (around 72,000) when ICE’s later-published statistics were used [4]. Reuters, TIME and other outlets describe a picture in which arrests rose dramatically but removals did not uniformly match the rhetoric until later, and that DHS changes to reporting make trend comparisons difficult [10] [6].
5. Fiscal-year context reported by DHS components historically
When DHS/ICE published yearbooks and ICE statistics historically, removals were categorized by component (ICE vs. CBP) and by fiscal year; for example, Migration Policy Institute summarized that DHS carried out an average of 352,000 deportations per year in FY2020–24 and ICE averaged 146,000 of those annually, underscoring that “deportations” involve multiple agencies and categories that can shift the headline number depending on counting rules [11] [12]. Available official historic tables exist but the sources provided do not contain a locked, public FY2025–2026 removal table that reconciles the administration’s public claims [14] [15].
6. Reporting limitations, competing narratives and what’s missing
Available sources document competing narratives: administration press releases and White House posts emphasize very large cumulative totals and self-deportation counts [1] [7], while watchdogs and reporting point to smaller verified counts for some periods and warn of inconsistent publication of ICE/DHS data [4] [13] [6]. Crucially, the documents and reporting here do not provide a single, reconciled table that lists total removals under the Trump presidency with a clean fiscal-year breakdown; official month-by-month or FY-locked numbers for the entire Trump term are “not found in current reporting” among the provided sources (not found in current reporting).
7. Bottom line for your question
If you take DHS/White House claims at face value, several administration statements put cumulative removals in the high hundreds of thousands to over half a million (e.g., >515,000; >527,000) and claim millions including voluntary departures [2] [1] [7]. Independent trackers and press reporting highlight much smaller or discrepant totals at various checkpoints (e.g., 139,000 in April 2025 vs. TRAC’s ~72,000 for an early period), and they emphasize inconsistent public data releases that prevent a definitive fiscal-year-by-fiscal-year accounting from the materials provided [3] [4] [10]. Available sources do not mention a fully reconciled DHS/ICE fiscal-year breakdown for the whole Trump presidency (not found in current reporting).