Biden’s total deportations compared tonTrumps total deportations
Executive summary
Data from think tanks and news organizations show competing pictures: Biden-era enforcement produced very high totals — the Migration Policy Institute reports the Biden administration was on pace to match Trump-era totals largely because of large numbers of border “voluntary returns,” and DHS counted roughly 685,000 total deportations/returns in FY2024 (as cited by Stateline) while Reuters and TRAC found Trump’s early 2025 monthly and daily removal rates were lower than Biden’s FY2024 averages (Reuters; TRAC) [1][2][3].
1. Numbers on the table: big totals, different measures
Sources use different metrics: “deportations,” “removals,” “returns,” and “expulsions” are often conflated. Migration Policy Institute emphasizes that many Biden-era totals were dominated by border returns rather than interior removals [1]. Stateline reports an estimated 685,000 total deportations in fiscal 2024 under Biden — a high-water mark in recent history — while also noting Trump projected fewer total deportations for 2025 [4]. Those raw totals therefore reflect policy mix and enforcement context, not a single uniform action type [1][4].
2. Apples-to-apples disputes: daily averages and time windows
Analysts at TRAC and Reuters focused on per‑day or month‑by‑month comparisons and found Trump’s early removal pace lagged Biden’s last full year. TRAC calculated Trump’s daily removals through early March 2025 were about 6–11% below Biden’s FY2024 daily average of roughly 742 removals per day, depending on the exact monitoring window [3]. Reuters used DHS data to show Trump deported 37,660 people in his first month — well below Biden-era monthly averages cited for late 2024 [2].
3. The role of “voluntary returns” and asylum rules
MPI and reporting note a critical caveat: many of Biden’s high totals came from border processing where migrants returned to their home countries or were turned away under Title 42-like expulsions and other controls, not classic interior ICE removals [1]. That distinction matters politically and legally: border returns are operationally easier and reflect border encounter volumes; interior removals require arrest, detention, immigration court processing and typically take longer [1].
4. Administration claims and watchdog counters
The White House under Trump asserted very large numbers quickly — a White House fact sheet in April 2025 claimed 139,000 deportations since inauguration — but other trackers challenge those headline claims as misleading or inconsistent with ICE reporting windows [5]. TRAC and Reuters emphasize rigorous counting and note administration rhetoric can oversell short-term snapshots [3][2].
5. Trends and capacity limits: rhetoric vs. logistics
Multiple sources caution that promises of “mass deportations” run up against logistics, diplomacy and legal limits. Reuters and TRAC both report officials expect or aim for higher rates but that scaling up depends on detainee capacity, flight diplomacy, and court rulings — factors that made Biden-era numbers spike during periods of huge border encounters but also constrained interior removals [2][3].
6. Independent trackers and flight data: mixed signals
Independent trackers of deportation flights and NGOs report that flight frequency and charter activity under Trump in 2025 was similar to Biden-era levels in key months, suggesting operational deportation throughput did not immediately spike to the scale some political messaging implied [6]. KPBS’s tracking found deportation flights “not up from where they were under Biden” in initial comparisons [6].
7. What we can say and what we can’t
Available sources show Biden’s final full fiscal-year totals were historically large and often driven by border returns [1][4]. They also show Trump’s early 2025 removal pace began below Biden’s FY2024 daily averages and that some claims of immediate mass deportations are disputed by data trackers [3][2][5]. Available sources do not mention a definitive cumulative head‑to‑head total covering both presidents’ entire multi‑year tenures through late 2025 in a single, reconciled dataset — different outlets use different definitions and reporting windows (not found in current reporting).
8. Bottom line for readers
When comparing “Biden’s total deportations” to “Trump’s total deportations,” read the footnotes: are you counting border expulsions/returns, ICE interior removals, fiscal-year windows or campaign‑period snapshots? MPI, TRAC and Reuters converge on this core finding: Biden’s last full fiscal year produced very high totals — largely from border encounters — while Trump’s early claims of huge, immediate mass removals are not fully borne out by contemporaneous ICE and independent tracker data [1][3][2].