How many us citizens have been deported by ice since January 20, 2025.

Checked on January 13, 2026
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Executive summary

Available reporting and government data reviewed contain no verified count of U.S. citizens deported by ICE since January 20, 2025; the public record and ICE’s own categorization of removals treat “citizenship” as a disqualifier for removal and instead record removals of noncitizens, while news outlets document administrative errors and denaturalization efforts but not a confirmed tally of citizen deportations [1] [2] [3].

1. What the question really asks and why it matters

The query — “How many U.S. citizens have been deported by ICE since January 20, 2025” — requires distinguishing between (a) lawful removals of noncitizens, (b) deportations arising from administrative error, and (c) the separate process of denaturalization that could, in theory, make a once-naturalized person removable; reporters and agencies typically publish aggregate removal totals for noncitizens, not counts of mistakenly removed citizens, so the absence of a published number is itself significant [1] [3] [2].

2. What the official and journalistic records show about deportations overall

Throughout 2025, multiple reporting projects and think tanks documented a sharp surge in ICE removals and enforcement activity — estimates range into the hundreds of thousands for removals since January 20, 2025 (for example, DHS spokespeople and outlets cite figures in the hundreds of thousands, and Migration Policy Institute estimated roughly 340,000 deportations for FY2025) — but these tallies are framed as removals of noncitizens and do not enumerate U.S. citizens among those removed [4] [5] [6].

3. Legal baseline: citizens are not removable; exceptions are errors or denaturalization

U.S.-born citizens cannot lawfully be deported under the Constitution, a baseline reflected in legal commentary and practical categorization of ICE statistics that break down arrests and removals by country of citizenship and immigration status rather than treating citizens as a removable group [2] [1]. Reporting does show that the Department of Justice announced prioritization of denaturalization proceedings in 2025 — a distinct legal track that could, after due process and an adverse court finding, expose a formerly naturalized person to removal — but the sources reviewed do not document completed denaturalizations followed by deportations in the period since January 20, 2025 [2].

4. Documented mistakes and contested cases in the public record

News coverage and watchdog tracking do record high‑profile mistakes and contested removals — for instance, a case publicized in March 2025 where Kilmar Armando Abrego García, a Salvadoran with withholding of removal status, was removed in what the administration called an “administrative error,” and courts later ordered his return — but those incidents involve noncitizens or people with complex status, not confirmed U.S. citizens being lawfully deported [3]. Human‑rights trackers and major outlets have also reported forcible transfers and extraordinary tactics, but again frame them as actions against noncitizens or as potentially unlawful transfers, not as routine deportations of citizens [7] [8].

5. Transparency gaps and the honest limit of the record

The strongest constraint on answering the question definitively is data transparency: DHS and ICE reporting in 2025 became less consistent and in some cases stopped publishing detailed public breakdowns, forcing journalists and researchers to rely on FOIA releases, independent flight-tracking, and NGO compilations — none of which produced a verified count of U.S. citizens removed by ICE since January 20, 2025 [6] [7]. Therefore, while multiple sources establish large-scale deportation numbers for noncitizens and document administrative errors and denaturalization initiatives, the public record reviewed contains no confirmed instances or aggregate count of lawful deportations of U.S. citizens in that interval [5] [3] [2].

Final answer: based on the reporting and official-statistics excerpts available, there is no verified evidence or published count of U.S. citizens deported by ICE since January 20, 2025; the record documents removals of noncitizens, administrative errors in specific noncitizen cases, and denaturalization efforts but not a confirmed tally of citizen deportations [1] [3] [2] [6].

Want to dive deeper?
Have there been documented cases of U.S. citizens mistakenly detained or removed by ICE in 2025?
How many denaturalization proceedings were initiated by DOJ in 2025 and did any lead to removal?
What transparency gaps exist in ICE/DHS reporting of arrests and removals since January 2025, and how have journalists filled them?