Fact check: How many American citizens have been mistakenly deported under this and previous administrations?

1. Summary of the results

Based on the available analyses, at least 70 American citizens were mistakenly deported between 2015 and 2020 according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report ^[1]. The data shows that during this period, ICE arrested 674 potential U.S. citizens, detained 121, and deported 70 ^[1].

Several specific cases illustrate the scope of this problem:

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador due to an administrative error, despite having a court order protecting him from removal ^{[2] [3] [4]}
• Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was detained by ICE for nearly 48 hours in Florida ^[2]
• Jose Hermosillo was arrested in Tucson, Arizona, and detained for nearly 10 days ^[2]
• Jordin Melgar-Salmeron was deported to El Salvador despite a federal appeals court order blocking his removal ^[5]

These cases demonstrate a pattern of administrative errors leading to mistaken deportations and wrongful detention of U.S. citizens during the Trump administration ^{[2] [5] [4]}.

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original question lacks several important contextual elements:

• The timeframe specificity: The GAO data covers 2015-2020, but there's no comprehensive data provided for other administrations or more recent years ^[1]
• The distinction between deportation and detention: Many cases involve wrongful detention of citizens rather than actual deportation ^[2]
• Administrative vs. systematic issues: The cases are consistently attributed to "administrative errors" rather than policy failures ^{[3] [5] [4]}
• Denaturalization efforts: The Trump administration also pursued efforts to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship, particularly those who committed certain crimes, which represents a different but related concern ^[6]

Government agencies and immigration enforcement officials would benefit from framing these incidents as isolated administrative errors rather than systematic problems, as this narrative minimizes institutional accountability and suggests the issues are procedural rather than structural.

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original question appears neutral and factual in its framing. However, it may inadvertently suggest that comprehensive data exists across all administrations when the available evidence shows:

• Limited data availability: Only one source provides concrete numbers (70 deportations between 2015-2020), while other sources focus on individual cases ^[1]
• Incomplete coverage: Some sources explicitly avoid providing deportation statistics, instead focusing on defending immigration policies or reporting on enforcement efforts without addressing citizen deportations ^{[7] [8]}
• Definitional ambiguity: The question doesn't distinguish between actual deportations and wrongful detentions, though both represent serious violations of citizens' rights

The question's neutrality actually highlights a significant gap in available public data, as comprehensive statistics on mistaken deportations across multiple administrations appear to be limited or not readily accessible through the analyzed sources.