How do deportation and expulsion totals under Biden compare year-by-year with prior administrations, and what do those differences reflect?
Executive summary
Deportation and expulsion totals under the Biden administration—when counted broadly to include Title 42 expulsions, removals, and returns—reach roughly 4.4–4.6 million repatriations by late 2024, exceeding totals for any single recent presidential term and surpassing Trump’s first-term totals [1] [2] [3]. However, year‑to‑year comparisons depend heavily on which categories (ICE removals, CBP expulsions under Title 42, administrative returns) are aggregated, and on changes in policy, pandemic-era authorities, and cooperation from foreign governments [4] [1].
1. How the numbers compare year‑by‑year: headline totals and peaks
DHS and reporting aggregations show the Biden era produced unusually large repatriation totals during 2021–2024—nearly 4.4 million repatriations across removals, expulsions and returns, and other outlets report as much as 4.6 million removed between January 2021 and November 2024—with FY2024 deportions/removals reaching decade highs and the highest single‑year ICE removals since 2014 [1] [2] [5]. Fiscal‑year 2024 alone saw figures such as roughly 775,000 processed under Title 8 after Title 42 ended (May 2023–March 2024) and monthly spikes including March 2022 and late‑2024 months documented by DHS and media reporting [1] [2]. By contrast, Trump’s first term deportation totals (2017–2021) are lower in most comparisons cited: reporting places Trump’s total removals during his first term at roughly 2.1–3.13 million depending on counting conventions, which Biden’s broader totals exceed [2] [3].
2. Why counting methodology flips the narrative
Much of the apparent gap stems from aggregating different enforcement categories: “removals” (formal deportations), “returns” or “administrative returns,” and pandemic expulsions under Title 42 are tracked differently by CBP, ICE, and DHS, and when combined they inflate a single administration’s repatriation count compared with strict ICE removal tallies [4] [1]. Analyses warn that DHS aggregates can obscure distinctions—e.g., enforcement returns vs. administrative returns—and that ICE and DHS reporting do not always align, producing different headline totals and leading observers to call some high figures “meaningless” without deeper breakdowns [4] [6].
3. What the year‑by‑year differences reflect: policy, pandemic authorities and diplomacy
The surge during the Biden years reflects several concrete drivers: use and legacy effects of Title 42 expulsions enacted in the pandemic era (March 2020–May 2023) that account for millions of expulsions, a post‑Title 42 ramp‑up under Title 8 that produced record expedited removals in 2023–24, and intensified diplomatic cooperation (notably with Mexico) that enabled more returns abroad [1] [5]. Administrations’ priorities and prosecutorial discretion rules, changes to asylum processing (e.g., CBP One and asylum limitations), and expanded operational capacity (detention, expedited removal) all materially affected year‑to‑year removal totals [6] [1] [5].
4. Politics, messaging and the limits of raw tallies
Numbers are political: incoming and outgoing administrations selectively highlight figures that suit narratives—Biden critics call his totals inconsistent with campaign promises while supporters point to operational constraints and border conditions; incoming Trump officials tout rapid early removals in January 2025 as a restoration of enforcement [7] [2]. Independent analysts and outlets caution against simple head‑to‑head claims without context, noting that counting border expulsions as “deportations” (as in some historical comparisons) complicates apples‑to‑apples year‑by‑year assessments [8] [4].
5. Bottom line and what remains unclear
Year‑by‑year, Biden‑era totals exceed Trump’s first‑term totals when expulsions, returns and removals are aggregated—producing record single‑year repatriations in FY2024 and multimillion totals for the administration overall—but the differences primarily reflect definitional choices (removals vs. returns vs. expulsions), pandemic‑era Title 42 authorities and international cooperation rather than a single policy change alone; detailed, comparable breakdowns across DHS, ICE and CBP remain necessary to fully parse trends [1] [4] [5].