How do DHS, ICE and CBP define and count removals vs. returns vs. expulsions?
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) treats "repatriations" as an umbrella that includes three distinct actions—removals, returns, and Title 42 expulsions—with different legal consequences and counting rules; removals are formal, carry administrative (and sometimes criminal) penalties, returns do not, and expulsions were rapid public-health-based removals under Title 42 from March 2020–May 2023 [1] [2]. DHS aggregates these actions across agencies (ICE, CBP USBP, and CBP OFO) in its Repatriations Key Homeland Security Metric (KHSM) and counts each repatriation event separately even when the same person is repatriated multiple times during the reporting period [1].
1. How DHS defines "repatriation," and why that matters
DHS explicitly calls any occasion when an alien is sent back to their country of citizenship or a third country "repatriation," and then subclasses those events into removals (which carry administrative penalties), returns (which do not), and Title 42 expulsions that were executed under a public‑health order during the pandemic [2] [1]. The semantic choice to put all three under one metric matters because headlines quoting DHS's aggregate "repatriations" number can mix legally distinct processes with different consequences for migrants—masking whether people were formally removed under a final order or informally returned without the same penalty structure [1] [3].
2. What DHS/ICE mean by "removals"—final orders, penalties, and ICE’s role
A DHS/ICE removal is the "compulsory and confirmed movement" of a removable or inadmissible alien out of the United States pursuant to a final order of removal; such removals carry administrative or criminal consequences for reentry and are the formal deportation mechanism most people mean by "deportation" [1]. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) tracks removals and detains individuals as needed to secure their presence for removal or immigration proceedings [4]. Expedited removal is one statutory pathway that produces many removals at ports of entry or for recent entrants, and it can be executed quickly by officers without full hearings—another reason variation exists across removal statistics [5].
3. "Returns"—what they are and how they’re counted differently
Returns are departures under Title 8 that are not pursuant to an order of removal and do not carry administrative penalties; CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO) and Border Patrol use specific disposition labels (e.g., voluntary return, withdrawal, visa-waiver return) to classify them, and OFO and USBP returns are included in DHS’ repatriations totals [1] [2]. DHS’s KHSM distinguishes OFO removals from OFO returns by disposition codes—administrative deportation or expedited removal for OFO removals versus voluntary departure, withdrawal, or VWP return for OFO returns—illustrating internal administrative differences in counting [1].
4. Title 42 expulsions—temporary public‑health authority with separate accounting
Title 42 expulsions were a separate class of action used to quickly expel certain encounters in the interest of public health during March 2020–May 2023; DHS and CBP datasets captured these expulsions separately and they were included in the repatriations KHSM when in effect [1] [4]. CBP maintained distinct Title 42 encounter datasets and DHS notes that individual expulsions could involve flights with multiple stops and coordination with foreign governments, which complicates simple headcounts [4].
5. Counting complications: duplicates, agency silos, and transparency gaps
DHS counts repatriation events, not unique people: someone repatriated multiple times in a reporting period is counted multiple times in the KHSM tables, and ICE and CBP maintain different reporting systems—ICE’s ERO publishes removals and returns while OHSS aggregates repatriations across agencies, meaning headline totals can conflate data sources and double‑count events at different stages [1] [6] [7]. Analysts note CBP’s internal reporting formats make some CBP removal data hard to extract in the same way ICE publishes removals, prompting critiques that aggregated DHS totals can be opaque or misleading if readers assume they represent unique individuals [7].
6. Competing narratives and institutional incentives
DHS and agency press releases highlight enforcement accomplishments and large repatriation figures—messages that serve policy and political aims—while independent analysts and watchdogs emphasize the mixing of returns and removals and the counting rules that inflate headline numbers [8] [7]. Sources from Congress and legal scholars underline historical shifts—voluntary returns once common were curtailed in favor of formal removals—which affects trends and comparisons across years [9].