How does Title 42 expulsions vs Title 8 removals affect deportation totals year to year?
Executive summary
Title 42 expulsions are public‑health–based, immediate removals counted as "expulsions" by CBP and tracked separately from Title 8 removals, which are removals under immigration law [1] [2]. Because CBP encounter statistics mix encounters, expulsions, and Title 8 apprehensions — and because many expulsions were repeat crossings — the prevalence of Title 42 during 2020–2023 materially changed year‑to‑year deportation and repatriation totals and complicates direct comparisons across years [3] [4] [5].
1. What Title 42 and Title 8 actually measure and why that matters
Title 42 was a CDC public‑health order used from March 2020 through May 2023 to rapidly expel migrants to their country of last transit or origin; these actions were recorded as expulsions and are not the same legal process as Title 8 removals under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which require removal proceedings or expedited removal in many cases [2] [1]. CBP's "encounters" dataset explicitly includes Office of Field Operations inadmissibles, Border Patrol Title 8 apprehensions, and Title 42 expulsions as distinct event types, meaning totals reported as "encounters" combine different legal categories and operational responses [3].
2. How reporting conventions shift year‑to‑year totals
Agencies and analysts have treated removals, enforcement returns, administrative returns, and Title 42 expulsions differently — some sources label Title 8 removals as "deportations" while treating Title 42 expulsions as "repatriations" — so year‑to‑year tallies depend on which categories are aggregated or separated [6]. During the life of Title 42, CBP averaged tens of thousands of expulsions per month — roughly 75,900 per month on average according to Migration Policy analysis — producing millions of expulsions from 2020–2023 and inflating border action totals relative to pre‑pandemic years if expulsions are treated as deportations [4] [7]. Conversely, when Title 42 ended, agencies shifted many encounters back into Title 8 processes, producing a surge of Title 8 removals and "deportations" in the subsequent 12 months reported by some analysts [8].
3. The mechanics that produce apparent spikes or drops
Because Title 42 enabled immediate expulsion with no immigration hearing and often no penal consequences for repeat attempts, the same individuals could be expelled multiple times, increasing the count of expulsions without necessarily increasing the count of unique people removed [9] [5]. When Title 42 was rescinded, many encounters that would have been expulsions began to be processed under Title 8 — yielding higher counts of formal removals and returns in those fiscal periods; Migration Policy reports 775,000 removals or returns in the 12 months after Title 42 ended and notes expedited removal surged [8]. Likewise, CBP reported in FY2023 that Title 8 removals on the Southwest border had already surpassed Title 42 expulsions for that year, illustrating how administrative choice about processing changes annual totals [10].
4. What this means for comparing "deportation totals" across years
Any year‑to‑year comparison of "deportations" must first define which actions are being counted: Title 8 removals (formal deportations) versus Title 42 expulsions (public‑health expulsions) or broader aggregates that include administrative returns and enforcement returns [6] [3]. Years dominated by Title 42 will show very large numbers of expulsions — nearly 2.8–2.9 million Southwest border expulsions during the policy's life per multiple analyses — but those figures overstate continuity with traditional removals because of repeat encounters and different legal consequences [7] [5]. Conversely, the post‑Title 42 increase in Title 8 removals represents a reclassification and operational ramp‑up rather than solely a sudden surge in unique people being removed from the country [8].
5. Caveats, agendas, and the data’s blind spots
Agencies publish differing datasets and definitions: CBP's encounter framework mixes event types, ICE reports removal statistics under Title 8, and analysts (e.g., Migration Policy, Pew, WOLA) emphasize different denominators — encounters, expulsions, removals, unique individuals — creating room for political narratives to emphasize either "millions expelled under Title 42" or "historic deportations under Title 8" depending on the agenda [3] [8] [4] [7]. Public sources also acknowledge limits: many Title 42 expulsions depended on third‑country acceptances (Mexico, etc.), and expulsions were concentrated among single adults and repeat crossers, complicating inferences about enforcement intensity or deterrence [4] [5]. Available sources do not provide a unified, person‑level longitudinal dataset in the public domain to perfectly reconcile unique individuals removed across policy regimes [2] [3].
6. Bottom line
Title 42 changed the composition and accounting of border enforcement: it produced very large counts of expulsions that boosted encounter totals while hiding the shift in legal classification that occurred when processing reverted to Title 8; after Title 42 ended, many actions formerly labeled expulsions were reclassified as Title 8 removals, producing apparent spikes in deportation totals even as part of that shift reflected a change in processing and repeated encounters rather than an equivalent rise in distinct people deported [4] [8] [5].