How many U.S. citizens were deported by ICE between 2015 and 2024 according to GAO and independent audits?
Executive summary
The best-established, government-backed figure comes from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which concluded that as many as 70 people identified as potential U.S. citizens were deported by ICE in the window GAO examined through 2020 — a finding echoed by independent groups citing the GAO report [1] [2]. There is no authoritative GAO or independent-audit tally that covers the full 2015–2024 interval; available audits and analyses repeatedly emphasize incomplete ICE/CBP recordkeeping and caution that the true number could be higher or remain unknown [3] [2].
1. What the GAO actually found and what that number means
GAO’s work identified “up to 70” potential U.S. citizens who were removed by ICE in the years it reviewed (the GAO reporting and subsequent summaries place that finding in the 2015–2020 context) and framed the figure as an upper-bound estimate rather than a precise count because of data limitations [1] [2]. GAO’s reports examined ICE arrest, detention and removal records for mid-decade years and explicitly warned that agency recordkeeping and data systems were insufficient to determine the full extent of enforcement actions against people who could be U.S. citizens [4] [3].
2. Independent audits and advocacy analyses: corroboration and wider estimates
Independent organizations and legal advocates have cited GAO’s “up to 70” figure and used FOIA-produced ICE data to explore broader patterns; the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) and other researchers have highlighted thousands of cases where ICE records flagged U.S. citizenship as possible or where people were placed on deportation rolls over longer timeframes (for instance TRAC/other analyses show thousands named as eligible for deportation across wider, multi-decade windows) [5] [1]. However, those independent datasets generally do not produce a clean, audited total of confirmed U.S. citizens deported specifically in 2015–2024, and many analyses stress the same caveat GAO raised: record gaps, inconsistent coding, and cancelled or reversed actions make exact counting unreliable [5] [2].
3. Why a single 2015–2024 total is not available in GAO/independent audits
Neither the GAO reports cited nor the independent datasets provided in the reviewed reporting publish a definitive, validated total of U.S. citizens deported by ICE covering calendar years 2015 through 2024 as a single figure; GAO’s “up to 70” applies to the period it examined through 2020 and was accompanied by repeated findings that ICE’s data systems and documentation practices prevent full accounting [3] [1]. ICE’s own newer dashboards and OHSS monthly tables make broader enforcement totals public for 2024, but they do not resolve the specific question of confirmed U.S. citizen removals across the entire 2015–2024 span in a GAO-style, audited way [6] [7].
4. The responsible conclusion with current public records
Based on GAO’s audit and the independent groups that cite it, the only clear, audit-backed figure for the mid-decade window is “up to 70” potential U.S. citizens deported in the period GAO examined through 2020, a point repeated by advocacy organizations referencing GAO’s work [1] [2]. Independent data projects and FOIA releases show many more cases where citizenship status was questioned or flagged and emphasize systemic record and procedural failures that prevent confident aggregation into a single 2015–2024 total [5] [3]. In short: GAO gives an audited upper-bound for the years it studied (up to 70 through 2020), independent analyses corroborate the problem’s existence and suggest higher, unresolved counts over broader windows, but no GAO or independent audit in the provided reporting supplies a validated total covering 2015–2024 [1] [5] [3].