How many lawful permanent residents were deported in FY2025 and by what grounds were they removed?
Executive summary
Official public reporting does not publish a single, authoritative tally of how many lawful permanent residents (LPRs, “green card” holders) were removed in FY2025, and the federal sources released for that year report competing totals for overall removals that make isolating an LPR-only figure impossible from the provided documents [1] [2] [3]. What is clear from the statutes and legal summaries is which grounds can trigger removal of LPRs, and court- and agency-level data allow tentative inferences—not a definitive count—about the mix of grounds used in FY2025 [4] [5] [6].
1. The headline removal totals — conflicting official and analyst counts
The Department of Homeland Security announced large aggregate removal figures for 2025—DHS press releases touted more than 527,000 removals in one update and later claimed more than 605,000 removals since January 20, 2025 [1] [3], while independent analysts and research organizations using government data estimated lower totals—Migration Policy Institute estimated roughly 340,000 ICE deportations in FY2025 based on available public figures [2]. These divergent totals are for all noncitizens removed or returned and are not broken out by immigration status (citizen, lawful permanent resident, nonimmigrant, or unauthorized entrant) in the public materials provided [1] [2] [3].
2. Why an exact FY2025 LPR deportation count is not extractable from the available reporting
The primary public datasets and press narratives released in 2025 do not publish a single, consolidated line for “LPR removals” in FY2025 in the documents given here, and secondary analyses cite differing bases and FOIA-derived counts that stop short of a clean LPR-only number [7] [8] [2]. The Office of Homeland Security Statistics and ICE publish many tables (encounters, removals, returns) but the excerpts provided do not include a definitive LPR breakdown that can be cited to state an exact FY2025 LPR deportation count [7] [9] [10].
3. The legal grounds that make LPRs removable — statutory and practitioner summaries
U.S. immigration law (INA §237 and related provisions) lays out numerous grounds that can render even an admitted LPR deportable, including criminal convictions (multiple crimes involving moral turpitude, aggravated felonies), national security or terrorism-related conduct, fraud in obtaining status, unlawful voting, and failure to maintain status or reentry after deportation, among others [4]. Consumer-legal guides and practitioners underscore that the list is broad and goes well beyond simple immigration violations—marriage fraud within two years, espionage or serious criminality, and various statutory bars can strip an LPR of lawful status and expose them to removal [5].
4. What the data suggest about the mix of removal grounds in FY2025
Court-level reporting and case-completion statistics indicate that a substantial portion of removal orders during FY2025 were not premised on alleged criminal activity as the primary basis in new court filings, with TRAC reporting that only about 1.6% of FY2025 new immigration court cases sought deportation orders based on alleged criminal activity apart from possible illegal entry—though that speaks to new filings rather than completed removals and should be read with caution [6]. Analysts and the CBO have also used FOIA data to quantify interior removals and fast-track processes, showing tens of thousands of interior removals through mid‑2025 but not isolating LPRs by grounds [8] [2]. In short, while criminal convictions (including aggravated felonies) are a well-known trigger for LPR removability under the INA, the available FY2025 case and agency snapshots in these sources do not yield a precise, verifiable split between criminal-ground removals and removals for immigration-status or administrative grounds for LPRs specifically [4] [6] [2].
5. Bottom line and reporting limits
No single source in the provided reporting gives an exact number of lawful permanent residents deported in FY2025 or a definitive breakdown by statutory grounds that applies only to LPRs; the public DHS/ICE totals are aggregate and contested by independent analysts, and the immigration statutes define the grounds but do not translate into a labeled FY2025 LPR count in these materials [1] [2] [4]. Any precise LPR-specific tally for FY2025 would require agency-provided breakdowns that separate removals by immigration status and by statutory ground; that level of disaggregation is not present in the supplied sources, and this analysis therefore reports the legal framework and the conflicting aggregate counts while acknowledging the data gap [7] [9] [8].