How did the number of deportations under Obama compare to the number under Trump in 2020?
Executive summary
Barack Obama’s administration carried out far more removals across his two terms than the single-year figure for 2020 under Donald Trump; fiscal‑year 2020 removals (about 185,884) were well below Obama‑era annual peaks and far lower than Obama’s multi‑year total of several million removals deportations-trump-biden-numbers/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [2]. Differences in counting—“removals” vs. “returns,” Border Patrol encounters vs. ICE interior removals—and uneven data releases mean direct one‑to‑one comparisons require care, but the available government‑based tallies and major trackers consistently show Obama’s years exceeding Trump’s 2020 rate [3] [4] [5].
1. The headline numbers: Obama’s multi‑year removals versus Trump’s 2020
From 2009 through 2016 the Obama administration removed roughly 2.7–3.1 million noncitizens, depending on which DHS‑based aggregation one cites—TRAC and other analysts report about 2,749,706 removed across those eight years while some DHS summaries and news accounts round to about 3 million over two terms [1] [2]. By contrast, the Department of Homeland Security’s fiscal‑year 2020 figure most commonly cited is about 185,884 deportations (removals), a single‑year total that sits well below Obama’s annual averages and far below his peak years such as 2012 when removals topped roughly 409,849 [1] [6].
2. Context: Trump’s 2020 sits below Obama’s peaks but fits a broader enforcement picture
Fiscal‑year 2020 removals under the Trump administration (about 185,884) are lower than many Obama years and much lower than Obama’s annual average during 2009–2016, which some analysts put near 343,713 per year [1]. Over the four fiscal years 2017–2020, DHS recorded about 2 million removals under Trump (with FY2017 including a few months of Obama’s term), but even that four‑year total does not change the fact that the 2020 year itself was substantially smaller than Obama’s highest single‑year totals [5].
3. Why the arithmetic can be misleading: different metrics and data practices
Comparisons are complicated because “deportations” is an umbrella term covering three DHS metrics—removals, returns, and voluntary departures—and historical practices sometimes included people turned away at the border as removals; scholars and reporters caution that mixing these categories produces misleading claims [3] [4]. Additionally, government reporting practices and public data releases shifted across administrations: limited or delayed releases from DHS and ICE during and after the Trump years make fine‑grained comparisons harder and invite divergent totals depending on source and methodology [4] [7].
4. Competing tallies and how different outlets present the story
Some outlets and advocates emphasize Obama’s “deporter‑in‑chief” label by highlighting his multi‑year totals and specific high years such as 2012, while others note that Trump professed more expansive deportation goals but did not necessarily match Obama’s annual removal totals in 2020 [6] [8]. Independent trackers and policy groups (Migration Policy Institute, TRAC, news fact‑checks) generally agree that overall removals under Obama were larger in absolute terms than removals in 2020 under Trump, but they also underline that whether one counts expulsions, returns, or removals changes the narrative [1] [3].
5. Bottom line and data caveats
The bottom line from the available reporting is straightforward: FY2020 removals under the Trump administration (about 185,884) were substantially lower than Obama‑era annual peaks and far below Obama’s cumulative removals across two terms, which amount to roughly 2.7–3.1 million depending on the aggregation used [1] [2]. That conclusion is robust across multiple reputable sources, but it comes with the important caveat that definitional differences (removals vs. returns vs. expulsions) and uneven data disclosure mean the exact comparative totals vary by methodology and by which categories of departures analysts include [3] [4].