Fact check: How many US citizens were wrongly deported by ICE between 2017 and 2021?

1. The GAO’s Big-Numbers Finding That Raised Alarms

The GAO report produced in July 2021 is the most systematic government accounting provided in the documents at hand: it found ICE actions against 674 arrested, 121 detained, and 70 removed people who were identified as potential U.S. citizens in fiscal years 2015 through the second quarter of fiscal 2020, and recommended better data collection and updated training to prevent wrongful enforcement against citizens ^{[1] [5]}. The GAO explicitly framed these counts as “potential” citizens and recorded enforcement actions rather than confirmed wrongful deportations; the agency flagged inconsistent ICE guidance and the absence of systematic tracking as the driver of uncertainty about how many of those actions reflected actual U.S. citizens ^[2].

2. What the GAO data does — and does not — tell us about 2017–2021

The GAO data window overlaps with the 2017–2021 period but does not provide a year-by-year breakdown that isolates those exact calendar years or clearly distinguish confirmed citizen status at the time of enforcement; therefore the report cannot be used to state definitively how many U.S. citizens were wrongly deported specifically between 2017 and 2021 ^[5]. The GAO recommended ICE improve its training and data systems to identify and track cases involving possible citizens, which implies that prior recordkeeping practices were inadequate for producing precise counts ^[5]. The presence of removals marked as “potential” citizens (70 removals across 2015–mid‑2020) indicates some citizen removals likely occurred, but the GAO’s methodology and wording prevent translating that figure directly into an exact tally of wrongful deportations in 2017–2021 ^[1].

3. Investigative reporting and lawsuits broaden the picture but don’t give a single tally

Reporting and litigation since 2025 have revealed many individual instances that supplement the GAO’s concerns: ProPublica’s review identified over 170 cases of U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents, including nearly 20 children and vulnerable individuals, which documents wrongful detentions and suggests systemic problems in enforcement practices ^[3]. Separate recent lawsuits such as the case filed by Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a U.S.-born citizen claiming multiple wrongful arrests by immigration agents, illustrate the human cost and legal fallout of these enforcement failures ^{[4] [6]}. These sources extend the record of wrongful detentions and arrests, but they do not establish a single, comprehensive count of confirmed deportations of U.S. citizens during the 2017–2021 timeframe.

4. Reconciling government counts with investigative findings — gaps and reasons

Reconciling the GAO counts with investigative tallies is made difficult by differences in definitions, recordkeeping, and the distinction between detention/arrest and confirmed deportation. The GAO used internal ICE encounter records and flagged uncertainty about citizenship determination; its “removed” count refers to removals of people identified as possible citizens, not necessarily confirmed U.S. citizens at time of removal ^[1]. Investigative outlets and plaintiffs’ lawyers compile case-level evidence often exposed through records requests and litigation; they can demonstrate wrongful detention or arrest in particular cases but cannot substitute for a complete federal dataset covering all years. Both perspectives align on one fact: systemic data weaknesses prevented a definitive public count for 2017–2021 ^{[2] [3]}.

5. What reputable sources recommend and what’s missing from public records

Both the GAO and investigative reporters converge on the policy implication that ICE needs stronger, standardized training and systematic data collection to prevent wrongful enforcement against citizens and to enable reliable public accounting ^{[5] [3]}. The GAO’s July 2021 recommendations called for updated guidance and data systems; the later reporting and lawsuits provide evidence that problems persisted and that more granular public data and independent oversight would help determine exact numbers for 2017–2021 ^{[5] [4]}. Without those reforms and without a complete, audited dataset from ICE that distinguishes confirmed citizen status at every enforcement action, officially verifiable totals for 2017–2021 cannot be produced from existing public records ^{[2] [5]}.

6. Bottom line: what can be stated with confidence today

From the documents supplied, the defensible, evidence-based conclusion is that ICE’s records show removal of 70 people identified as potential U.S. citizens between fiscal 2015 and mid‑2020, and investigative reporting since 2025 documents at least 170 U.S. citizens detained by ICE agents, but no authoritative public source provides a definitive count of U.S. citizens wrongly deported specifically between 2017 and 2021 ^{[1] [3]}. To answer the precise numeric question asked would require ICE to produce audited, year-by-year data confirming citizenship status at time of removal or independent litigation-level case inventories that cover every removal in the relevant period; that level of public documentation is not available in the sources provided ^{[2] [5]}.