How many criminal noncitizens were removed from the United States in 2022?

1. The raw number and its provenance

The most commonly cited figure for criminal removals in FY2022 is 63,226, based on DHS removal counts reproduced by Statista and identified as “criminal aliens removed” ^[1]. That number is traceable to DHS’s Yearbook tables (Table 42) which break out removals by criminal status and nationality for fiscal years through 2022 ^[2].

2. What “criminal” means in DHS counts — an important technicality

DHS’s published tables classify “criminals” as noncitizens with previous criminal convictions; persons with pending criminal charges have historically been included in the non‑criminal removal category in DHS reporting ^[2]. CBP and ICE definitions likewise treat “criminal noncitizens” as those convicted of crimes either in the U.S. or abroad, reinforcing that DHS’s “criminal” removals count convicted, not merely accused, individuals ^[3].

3. Why that number does not capture all enforcement activity

Total removals, expulsions and returns across agencies were much larger in recent years, and DHS reporting separates different categories (removals vs. expulsions) and actors (ICE vs. CBP) — for example, analyses of government data note millions of encounters and several hundred thousand removals/expulsions across fiscal years, distinct from the subset classified as “criminal removals” ^[4]. This matters because focusing only on the “63,226 criminal removals” figure can obscure the broader universe of enforcement actions and administrative expulsions that are not categorized as removals of convicted criminals ^[4].

4. Context: shifting priorities and enforcement patterns in 2019–2022

ICE enforcement priorities and operational focus changed during 2019–2022, with agency guidance in 2021 prioritizing national security, public safety and border security and with resources diverted to the southwest border; GAO and policy analysts note that these shifts coincided with fewer interior removals of people with criminal histories compared with earlier years ^{[5] [6]}. That operational context helps explain why criminal removals in FY2022 are a specific slice of total enforcement activity rather than a full accounting of removal-related enforcement.

5. Competing framings and political uses of the data

Advocates, congressional committees and media outlets frequently cite the number of “criminal noncitizens” in different ways — for example, some congressional fact sheets highlight large numbers on ICE’s non‑detained docket, while other outlets emphasize aggregate expulsions and releases — and these different framings can push public attention toward either magnifying or minimizing perceived enforcement success ^{[7] [8]}. The DHS operational definitions (convicted vs. pending charges) and the separation of removals from expulsions are key levers that change how the same underlying data are interpreted and politically leveraged ^{[2] [4]}.

6. Bottom line and reporting limits

The authoritative, DHS‑based publicly reported count for FY2022 is 63,226 criminal noncitizens removed (as compiled in DHS tables and reproduced by Statista) — but that figure must be read with DHS’s definitions and the wider enforcement context in mind: it counts convicted noncitizens removed under DHS processes and does not include people with only pending charges or many types of expulsions and encounters handled outside the removals category ^{[1] [2] [4]}. Where this analysis cannot go further is in reconciling every public claim about “criminals released” or “criminals on docket” since those statements draw on different datasets (non‑detained dockets, expulsions, encounters) and are reported by a range of officials and outlets with varying definitions ^{[8] [7]}.