How many people did ICE remove each year under President Barack Obama (2009-2016)?
Executive summary
The Obama-era pattern of ICE removals peaked early and declined toward 2016: exact, publicly reported removal counts for specific years are compiled in DHS’s Yearbook tables, with selective figures showing roughly 392,000+ removals in FY2010, more than 400,000 in parts of the early 2010s, and 240,255 removals in FY2016 [1] [2] [3] [4]. Reporting and research outlets emphasize that the administration shifted enforcement priorities—focusing on border crossers and criminals—so aggregate annual totals alone obscure important changes in who was removed and how removals were counted [5] [6].
1. Early-term peaks and public claims of “record” removals
The Obama administration recorded some of its highest ICE removal totals in its early years and publicly celebrated what DHS called “record‑breaking” enforcement in FY2010, when DHS reported more than 392,000 removals nationwide and emphasized a surge in convicted‑criminal removals [1]. Independent commentators and some secondary sources likewise point to annual removal figures in the roughly 300,000–400,000 range during parts of the first term, a fact that underlies critics’ “deporter‑in‑chief” characterization of the administration [7] [6].
2. Mid‑term nuance: prioritization and a changing mix of cases
Scholarly and policy analyses stress that the Obama administration changed enforcement priorities—sharpening focus on recent border crossers and criminal aliens while narrowing interior enforcement against long‑standing status violators—and that counting changes (including transfers from Border Patrol to ICE processing) affected the composition of removals even when raw totals remained high [5] [3]. Researchers note interior removals were particularly high in Obama’s first term but declined later as enforcement emphasized border returns and expedited non‑judicial removals [6] [3].
3. Late‑term decline: the 2016 figure and what it represents
By FY2016 ICE removals had fallen from earlier peaks; one dataset cited here reports 240,255 total ICE removals for 2016 and a decline in interior criminal removals compared with 2010 levels [3]. Analysts warn that such year‑to‑year declines reflect both substantive policy shifts and methodological counting differences—removals versus “returns,” and administrative arrests counted by ICE—so a single number requires context about how DHS and ICE classified and recorded events [3] [4].
4. Where to find definitive, year‑by‑year counts and why many summaries vary
The Department of Homeland Security’s Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (Table 39 and related monthly enforcement tables) is the primary source that tabulates “aliens removed or returned” by fiscal year and provides the authoritative year‑by‑year counts; the Yearbook also documents methodological notes that explain changes in counting over time [4] [8]. Secondary syntheses—migration policy analyses, think‑tank reports and news summaries—draw on those DHS tables but sometimes highlight different slices (e.g., ICE removals only, or removals of criminal aliens), which explains discrepancies across reports [5] [6].
5. Critiques, alternative tallies, and limits of the available reporting
Civil‑liberties advocates and some researchers emphasize that the number of removals does not capture due‑process concerns—most removals in recent decades have been non‑judicial and many people removed did not see a judge—so numerical tallies understate qualitative differences in enforcement practice and access to legal process [9]. Other compilations and media summaries sometimes aggregate removals and returns or use partially overlapping time frames, which produces higher cumulative figures seen in some secondary sources; these differences underscore the need to consult DHS’s Yearbook for precise annual counts and to read the table notes about methodology [7] [2] [4].
Final assessment: the sources assembled here provide explicit annual figures only for select years—FY2010 (more than 392,000) and FY2016 —and point readers to DHS Yearbook Table 39 for definitive, year‑by‑year removals from FY2009 through FY2016; broader claims about “nearly 3 million” or exact per‑year totals across the whole administration reflect differing definitions and secondary aggregations rather than a single unambiguous FBI/ICE tally in the material provided [1] [3] [2] [4].