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Fact check: How many legal immigrants were deported by ICE in 2022?
Executive Summary
ICE reported 72,177 removals (deportations/removals) in fiscal year 2022, but the agency’s public summaries and contemporaneous news reports do not break that total into a clear count of how many deported were lawful permanent residents or other categories commonly described as “legal immigrants.” Reporting also notes that 44,096 of the FY2022 removals involved individuals with criminal convictions or charges, which is a distinct metric from immigration status and does not identify who among the removals were lawful residents. Because the available documents in the record do not separate removals by legal-immigrant status, an exact count of legal immigrants deported by ICE in 2022 cannot be determined from these sources [1] [2] [3].
1. The headline figure everyone quotes — 72,177 removals — and what it covers
ICE and multiple contemporaneous articles report 72,177 removals in FY2022, describing that total as removals to more than 150 countries worldwide and as the agency’s annual removals count; this figure is the consistent headline across government releases and news summaries [1] [2] [4]. The published summaries present that number as the broadest measure of enforcement outcomes for the fiscal year, but they do not parse the total by immigration status categories in the materials provided here, meaning the aggregate is accurate while the composition by legal status is not supplied in these accounts [1] [2].
2. A large subset had criminal records — 44,096 — but that’s not the same as “legal” status
Multiple sources in the record highlight that 44,096 of the removals in FY2022 involved individuals with criminal convictions or pending charges, a statistic emphasized by ICE and in coverage of the agency’s enforcement activity [3] [4]. That criminogenic breakdown is a distinct classification used for policy and political framing; it does not map onto lawful versus unlawful immigration status, and the presence of criminal history does not answer how many removed were lawful permanent residents, visa-holders, or otherwise “legal immigrants.” The sources therefore show overlap but not equivalence between criminality and legal status in removal counts [3].
3. The public record here lacks a definitive tally of deported lawful permanent residents or other legal classes
The assembled materials repeatedly document arrests, expulsions, and removals, yet none of the cited summaries or news stories in this packet provides a clean number labeled “legal immigrants deported” in 2022. Where individual lawful-resident cases are reported, they are anecdotal rather than tabulated; ICE’s FY2022 reporting and related coverage present totals and criminal-history splits but omit a systematic public breakdown by lawful-resident or other legal-immigrant categories in the excerpts available here [1] [5] [2].
4. Individual cases show lawful permanent residents were among those deported, but scale is unclear
The record documents illustrative cases of lawfully residing individuals who were removed, such as a reported former permanent resident deported after lengthy custody and veterans who were removed, indicating LPRs and other lawfully connected noncitizens appear in removal statistics [6] [7]. ICE’s veteran removals note five criminal noncitizen removals among honorably discharged service members in the first half of CY2022, an example of specific lawful-affiliation subpopulations appearing in removals — but these items remain discrete examples and do not supply an overall count of all lawful immigrants removed in 2022 [7] [6].
5. Multiple outlets and releases agree on totals but differ in emphasis and framing
Government summaries and news reports in the record consistently report the same FY2022 removal total and the criminal-history subset, but they emphasize different policy angles: some underscore the overall number to show enforcement activity, others stress the criminal-justice component, while advocates and case stories highlight lawful residents affected. This divergence of framing illustrates how the same underlying data can be used to support different narratives, yet none of the pieces presented here resolves the specific numeric question about how many removals involved people who held legal-immigrant status [2] [4] [5].
6. What the record allows you to conclude — and what it doesn’t — plus next steps
From the sources provided, the firm, evidence-based conclusion is that 72,177 removals occurred in FY2022 and 44,096 removals involved people with criminal convictions or charges, but the available materials do not provide a separate, authoritative count of removals that were lawful permanent residents or other “legal immigrants.” To obtain a precise figure, one would need access to ICE’s detailed case-level removal datasets or a DHS breakdown by immigration-status categories for FY2022; such disaggregated data are not contained in the documents summarized here