How do deportation numbers compare when including administrative arrests, criminal removals, and voluntary departures?
Executive summary
When policymakers and agencies talk about "deportations," they are often collapsing three distinct categories—administrative (at-large) arrests, criminal removals (formal removals following orders or convictions), and voluntary departures/self‑deportations—into a single headline number; that conflation dramatically alters the picture because voluntary departures vastly outnumber formal removals in several recent DHS reports, while independent analysts produce lower estimates and note inconsistent data releases [1] [2] [3] [4]. The gap between agency publicity and outside tracking underscores that counting rules and political messaging drive much of what the public interprets as a “deportation surge” [1] [5].
1. Definitions matter: removals, returns, and voluntary departures
Federal statistics use different terms: "removals" or deportations are formal expulsions under an order of removal, "returns" and "repatriations" can include border‑level expedited processes, and "voluntary departure" or "self‑deportation" describes people who leave without a formal removal order—categories that are aggregated in some DHS messaging but separated in technical tables such as ICE and OHSS monthly tables [6] [7] [8].
2. DHS public totals: large numbers driven by voluntary departures
DHS press releases in late 2025 and early 2026 credited the administration with multiples of hundreds of thousands leaving the country by combining formal removals with voluntary self‑deportations—examples include claims of more than 2 million and later 2.5 million departures, where roughly 1.6–1.9 million were reported as voluntary self‑deports versus ~527,000–605,000 labeled as deportations or removals [1] [2].
3. Independent estimates and narrower tallies tell a different story
Migration Policy Institute and TRAC compile and interpret raw agency data and produced lower estimates for formal deportations: MPI estimated about 340,000 ICE deportations in FY2025 (including some voluntary departures by detainees), while TRAC’s rolling totals and ICE’s own periodic tables show smaller counts for formal removals when compared to DHS’s combined press numbers [3] [4].
4. Administrative arrests and at‑large enforcement inflate operational footprints
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) predominantly conducts administrative arrests of people believed removable and has broadened at‑large arrests in communities rather than relying solely on jail transfers; those administrative arrests feed the pool of people who may be counted later as either formal removals or voluntary departures, depending on outcome and reporting choices [6] [9].
5. Criminal removals are a subset, politically emphasized
The administration has repeatedly emphasized removing people with criminal convictions—DHS messaging claims a large share of ICE arrests involve individuals charged with or convicted of crimes—yet independent reporting finds that, while many arrested do have criminal histories, thousands of people without convictions have also been detained and removed, and the proportion varies by data series and fiscal year [1] [10] [4].
6. The numerical comparison: voluntary departures dwarf formal removals in DHS tallies, but not in all datasets
Using DHS press release framing, voluntary self‑deportations account for roughly three to four times the number of formal deportations in the cited announcements (e.g., ~1.6–1.9 million voluntary departures versus ~527,000–605,000 removals) [1] [2]. By contrast, analysts who restrict counts to ICE removals and court‑ordered deportations produce much lower totals for formal removals—hundreds of thousands rather than millions—and often treat voluntary departures as a separate category or exclude them from “deportation” totals [3] [4].
7. Caveats, transparency gaps, and political agendas
The disparity arises partly from definitional choices and partly from selective communication: DHS press releases aggregate flows to highlight enforcement impact and political victories, while independent bodies like MPI, TRAC and Newsweek stress methodological limits, inconsistent publishing, and the need to separate returns/voluntary departures from formal removals for apples‑to‑apples comparisons [1] [3] [5]. Journalistic and policy analyses therefore must read the fine print—whether a number is counting administrative arrests, formal removals, border returns, or voluntary departures—because each reflects different legal processes and public‑policy implications [6] [7] [8].
8. Bottom line
Counting administrative arrests, criminal removals, and voluntary departures together produces headline totals that are far larger—often by multiples—than counts limited to formal deportations; DHS press releases explicitly show voluntary departures as the largest component of their big tallies [1] [2], while independent trackers and migration experts present more modest figures for formal removals and call attention to reporting inconsistencies and operational changes that complicate year‑to‑year comparisons [3] [4].