How many immagrants did joe biden deport
Executive summary
Available sources show multiple ways of counting “deportations” under President Joe Biden: DHS/ICE dashboards and reporting cite annual removals like about 271,000–272,000 in FY2024 while analyses that combine removals, expulsions and returns report roughly 4.4 million “repatriations” over the administration to date [1] [2] [3]. Different outlets and advocacy groups dispute which counts should be called “deportations” and whether shorter returns or Title 42 expulsions should be equated with formal removals [3] [4].
1. What the official data show: annual removals and ICE dashboards
ICE’s public statistics and dashboards provide the most direct “removal” counts; reporting notes that FY2024 recorded roughly 271,000–272,000 removals—the highest single-year total in recent history and higher than comparable recent years [1] [2] [5]. Reuters and ICE publications point to a monthly average in Biden’s last full year (about 57,000 removals and returns per month) to explain why some year-to-year comparisons look large [6].
2. Why some analysts report millions: expulsions, returns and “repatriations”
Migration Policy Center and others combine formal removals with expulsions, returns and other actions that prevented migration or sent people back at the border; that combined total is cited as nearly 4.4 million “repatriations” over the Biden administration—far larger than single-year ICE removal totals [3]. These broader tallies include CBP returns and Title 42-era expulsions that the government often counts differently than ICE removals [3].
3. Disagreement over terminology: deportation vs. return vs. expulsion
Conservative think tanks and some reporters argue Biden presided over fewer “deportations” in the sense of formal ICE removals, while other outlets and DHS figures emphasize large return/expulsion totals that inflate the headline number; the Center for Immigration Studies for example disputes characterizations that Biden deported more than predecessors and criticizes mixing returns into “deportation” totals [4]. Migration Policy and mainstream outlets present competing framings; the difference is largely definitional [3] [4].
4. Year-to-year peaks and political context
Multiple sources document a spike in removals during FY2024 (about 271k) and note that high encounter volumes at the border made many people easier to quickly return or expel, which raised repatriation figures; Reuters highlights that later administrations may struggle to match Biden-era monthly removal/return rates if encounter levels change [6] [3]. Political actors use whichever metric best suits their narratives—advocates emphasize formal removal totals, opponents emphasize cumulative returns/expulsions [2] [4].
5. Where reporting disagrees and why that matters
TRAC and Reuters reporting compare daily or fiscal-year removal rates and show Biden’s FY2024 removals at roughly 272,000, while Migration Policy’s aggregation of returns and expulsions reaches millions; the dispute is not only numbers but policy implication: counting returns makes enforcement look larger, while counting only ICE removals narrows the scope to formal deportation actions [2] [3]. Fact-check and research outlets warn readers to check whether numbers are “removals,” “returns,” or total “repatriations” before accepting headlines [7] [4].
6. Children, asylum cases and court outcomes: a separate dimension
Academic and legal reports emphasize that many deportation orders involve people—including children—who lacked counsel or faced summary in-absentia orders, leading to tens of thousands of deportation orders against minors or those without representation; these humanitarian and procedural issues are reported alongside numerical counts and complicate simple tallies [8]. Sources note that court and policy changes (e.g., changes to asylum processing) affect both the flow and the character of removals [3] [8].
7. Bottom line for readers seeking a single figure
There is no single uncontested number in the sources provided: if you mean formal ICE “removals,” available reporting cites roughly 271,000–272,000 removals in FY2024 [1] [2]. If you mean the broader category that includes expulsions, returns and other measures at the border, Migration Policy reports nearly 4.4 million “repatriations” over the administration [3]. Which figure is the correct way to answer “how many immigrants did Joe Biden deport?” depends on the definition—sources disagree and political actors selectively cite the measure that fits their case [3] [4].
Limitations and next steps: All figures above come from the sources you supplied; available sources do not mention a single universally accepted “deportation” total that both removes and returns acceptably cover without definitional dispute. If you want, I can pull the exact ICE dashboard tables for year-by-year removals or assemble a side‑by‑side table comparing “removals” and “repatriations” from these sources.