What demographic breakdowns (age, gender, criminal convictions) characterize ICE removals in 2025 versus earlier years?

1. What the official dashboards say about who is removed

ICE’s public statistics page and its June 2025 dashboard update describe removals as a mix of returns, voluntary departures, expedited removals and Title 8 removals, and say the agency is prioritizing threats to public safety and national security while still removing others without convictions ^{[1] [6]}. DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) publishes “ICE ERO Removals and Returns by Citizenship, Criminality, and Initial Arresting Agency” monthly and says it constructs those tables from the Persist dataset — the agency of record for operational reporting ^[2]. Those official products therefore are the primary source for demographic breakdowns (age, gender, criminality) but require users to consult the specific OHSS/ICE tables for the numeric splits ^{[2] [1]}.

2. How criminal-conviction breakdowns are being reported and contested

ICE and DHS categorize removals by “criminality” in their tables, but secondary analysts and advocates report different emphases. ICE states it increased removals of noncitizens “with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges” in early FY2024 compared with FY2023 ^[1]. By contrast, advocacy and research outlets tracking 2025 enforcement report that a large share of detainees or removed people had no criminal convictions — examples include Migration Policy and Human Rights First’s Flight Monitor — which state that many detainees in 2025 lacked criminal convictions and that removal flights increased markedly under the 2025 administration ^{[4] [5]}. These divergent emphases reflect differences in definitions (detained population vs. removed individuals), time frames, and dataset coverage ^{[1] [4]}.

3. Age and gender information: official source exists but public summaries are sparse

DHS’s OHSS monthly tables explicitly include breakdowns such as “ICE ERO Removals and Returns by Citizenship, Criminality, and Initial Arresting Agency,” and the Persist dataset is the underlying system of record, which implies age and sex/gender cross-tabulations are produced ^[2]. ICE’s public statements and press releases emphasize operational totals and criminality categories more than front‑page age/gender summaries, so the precise 2025 age and gender shares are available in the OHSS/ICE tables but are not summarized in the press releases cited here ^{[1] [2]}. Available sources do not mention a single consolidated age-by-gender-by-criminality summary in press releases (not found in current reporting).

4. Independent trackers and researchers: methodological differences matter

Projects like the Deportation Data Project and TRAC make ICE raw data available and note they process and clean it; Deportation Data Project’s release covers enforcement through July 2025 and warns users about updates and previous omissions such as removals data timing ^[7]. TRAC and other researchers caution that short-term daily averages can be misleading and that migration of datasets and reporting conventions affect year‑to‑year comparisons ^{[8] [9]}. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has previously flagged that ICE public reporting understates the total number detained because certain temporary facility bookings are excluded, which is a reminder that underlying definitions change how demographic shares appear ^[10].

5. Competing narratives about the share without criminal convictions

Multiple sources assert a rising share of people in ICE custody or removed without criminal convictions in 2025, but numbers differ. Migration Policy’s reporting and a 2025 Flight Monitor narrative say a large majority or a substantial share of detainees lacked convictions ^{[4] [5]}. Other commentators and trackers emphasize increased removals of people with convictions in early FY2024 compared with FY2023 as reported by ICE ^[1]. The disagreement largely stems from whether one measures the detained population at a point in time, removals over a period, or arrests/releases for removal — all produce different criminality mixes ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

6. What to consult next for precise numerical comparisons

For precise 2025 versus earlier-year breakdowns by age, sex/gender, and criminal convictions, consult (a) DHS OHSS monthly “ICE ERO Removals and Returns by Citizenship, Criminality …” and its Persist dataset; (b) ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations statistics dashboard and its periodic updates; and (c) cleaned datasets from Deportation Data Project or TRAC for researcher-friendly formats ^{[2] [1] [7] [8]}. Keep in mind GAO cautions about counting conventions and that independent monitors may use different inclusion rules ^[10].

Limitations: public summaries and press releases emphasize totals and broad criminality categories rather than a neat, widely‑circulated age × gender × conviction cross‑tabulation; available sources do not provide a single consolidated table in the press releases cited here (p1_s13; ^[2]; not found in current reporting).