How many U.S. citizens were confirmed deported by ICE between 2018 and 2025 according to independent audits?
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Executive summary
No independent audit number confirming how many U.S. citizens were deported by ICE between 2018 and 2025 appears in the reporting provided; the available sources document that ICE and DHS maintain and publish removals and citizenship fields but do not supply an independent audit count of wrongly deported U.S. citizens for that period [1] [2]. In short, the record shows datasets and advocacy analyses that could be used to investigate such claims, but the sources here do not contain an independent-audit-verified tally of U.S. citizens removed during 2018–2025 [2] [3].
1. What the federal data systems actually record
DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics publishes monthly immigration enforcement tables that include ICE ERO removals by citizenship and says those tables are constructed from the OHSS Persist Dataset built from DHS operational reports — meaning ICE records removals with citizenship fields and related metadata [1]. The Deportation Data Project likewise emphasizes that ICE collects data on every person it encounters, arrests, detains, transports via flight, and deports and has published extensive FOIA-obtained datasets that researchers use for retrospective analysis [2] [4]. These two facts show the administrative capacity exists to identify removals by declared citizenship, but they are not, by themselves, an independent audit confirming wrongful deportations of U.S. citizens [1] [2].
2. Independent audits versus public data releases
The sources provided include government data releases and non‑profit analyses (for example, TRAC and the Deportation Data Project) that analyze ICE’s removals and arrests, but those are based on ICE records and FOIA-produced datasets rather than an independent audit specifically seeking and verifying wrongful removals of U.S. citizens [2] [3]. TRAC and advocacy trackers have compiled removal totals and highlighted issues in ICE coding and data quality, yet neither the TRAC reporting nor the Deportation Data Project materials in the supplied set present a verified count of U.S. citizens deported after independent audit procedures [3] [2].
3. Reporting that is sometimes mistaken for “audits”
Journalists and researchers frequently cite ICE’s own removals tables and FOIA data releases to estimate removals by nationality or field office, and watchdog groups monitor deportation flights and trends [5] [6]. Those efforts can surface individual wrongful‑removal cases or systemic risks, but they do not equal an independent audit that cross‑checks ICE removal actions against external identity verification, consular contacts, or legal case reviews to produce a single validated count of U.S. citizens deported [5] [6].
4. Data quality caveats and why an independent audit matters
Researchers have noted ICE datasets contain incomplete fields, missing identifiers, and shifting categorization practices that complicate retrospective attribution of removals to citizenship categories — problems that make deriving a precise independent number difficult without a targeted audit that reconciles records across systems [7]. The Deportation Data Project and TRAC explicitly document both the availability of granular ICE data and its limitations for some investigative questions, underscoring that an audit beyond using ICE’s own tables would be required to claim a verified count [2] [3].
5. Conclusion: what can be stated with confidence
Based on the reporting and datasets supplied, there is no independent audit published in these sources that confirms a specific number of U.S. citizens deported by ICE between 2018 and 2025; the government's statistics and FOIA-derived datasets are available and have been analyzed by outside groups, but they have not been presented here as an independent, audit‑verified total of U.S. citizen deportations [1] [2] [3]. If an authoritative, independent audit exists, it is not included among the provided materials; further investigative steps — FOIA for case files, cross‑matching passenger manifests and consular records, or an external inspector‑general style review — would be needed to produce the type of verified number the question requests [2] [1].