How many removals and returns were recorded under the Biden administration each year (2021–2025)?
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Executive summary
The question asks for annual counts of "removals and returns" under the Biden administration for 2021–2025; the federal statistics distinguish between ICE removals (formal removals executed by ICE) and CBP/Title‑42 expulsions or returns (turn‑backs and expulsions at the border), and reporting practices and definitions changed during this period—so raw year‑to‑year totals vary by source and by whether "returns/expulsions" are included (DHS/OHSS is the system of record) [1] [2]. The best publicly reported, source‑cited figures show ICE removals of roughly 59,011 in FY2021, 72,177 in FY2022 and 142,580 in FY2023, with sharp increases in combined removals+returns in FY2024 depending on whether expulsions/returns are counted; FY2025 national totals were not yet settled in the available datasets and monthly OHSS updates remain the authoritative source [3] [4] [5] [1].
1. What the official categories mean and why numbers differ
DHS statistical systems separate ICE "removals" (formal administrative removals often after an order) from CBP border "returns" or Title 42 expulsions (quick turn‑backs at the border); many public claims conflate the two to produce larger totals, while critics point out that interior ICE removals under Biden were lower in early years—this definitional split is the primary reason sources publish very different year totals and why the OHSS Persist dataset is the designated system of record [1] [3] [2].
2. Removals (ICE) during FY2021–FY2023 — the clearest slice of data
ICE removal counts published and summarized by multiple outlets put fiscal‑year removals under Biden at about 59,011 in FY2021, 72,177 in FY2022 and 142,580 in FY2023; those figures are cited by policy analysts critical of the administration for low interior removals and are drawn from DHS/ICE reporting focused on ICE ERO activity [3] [6].
3. FY2024: big divergence between “removals” and “removals plus returns/expulsions”
For FY2024 the picture changes: TRAC’s analysis reports roughly 272,000 ICE removals in FY2024 (an ICE‑removals focused measure) while other reporting that aggregates removals, returns and expulsions (border expulsions/Title 42-era and post‑Title 8 returns) yields far larger annual totals—Reuters summarized that the last full year of the Biden presidency averaged about 57,000 removals and returns per month, implying an annualized tally in the high hundreds of thousands depending on exact inclusions—migrationpolicy.org also highlights a 12‑month span with roughly 775,000 removals or returns after Title 42 ended, illustrating how inclusion of border returns drives much larger counts [4] [5] [7].
4. 2025: incomplete, politicized, and rapidly changing reporting
Publicly available datasets and independent trackers show reporting became more fragmented in early 2025; ICE/ DHS dashboards historically updated through December 2024 in some public forms and OHSS continued to update monthly, but authoritative consolidated annual FY2025 totals were not yet finalized in the sources provided here—independent trackers (TRAC, Reuters) have produced partial two‑week and monthly tallies for early 2025, but those are interim and complicated by the January 2025 transition and differing definitions, so a single, reconciled FY2025 "removals+returns" figure cannot be claimed from the supplied materials [8] [9] [1].
5. How to read conflicting claims and who benefits
Political actors and interest groups routinely emphasize either ICE removals (to show interior enforcement) or aggregated removals+returns/expulsions (to show overall outbound flows) to bolster their narrative: critics argue Mayorkas and DHS conflated returns with removals to inflate claims of enforcement, while defenders point to large border expulsions and diplomatic repatriations as real enforcement outcomes; the underlying data source to consult for rigorous follow‑up is DHS’s OHSS Persist dataset and ICE’s statistics pages because they document the operational definitions and monthly updates [3] [2] [1].