How many removals did ICE record for fiscal year 2025 and how are removals defined?
Executive summary
Fiscal year (FY) 2025 removals by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are not reported as a single unambiguous, final number in the public datasets provided by ICE and DHS; independent analysts have therefore produced differing estimates—most prominently the Migration Policy Institute’s estimate of about 340,000 ICE removals for FY2025 [1]—while data-monitoring projects warn ICE’s posted removals files for 2025 were incomplete or revised and recommend relying on corrected late-July datasets [2] [3]. Removals, as counted in DHS statistical products, are departures tied to a case “action date” (a derived variable based on closure and departure dates) and generally denote a person leaving the United States pursuant to an administrative or judicial order of removal or related enforcement disposition; DHS and ICE methodological notes stress that removals/returns reporting is subject to retroactive corrections and reporting conventions [4] [5].
1. Why a single official FY2025 “removals” number is elusive
ICE’s public statistics page and downloadable tables remain the primary official source, but ICE repeatedly warns that data “fluctuate until ‘locked’ at the conclusion of the fiscal year,” and that some 2025 removals tables were incomplete when first posted [5] [6] [2]. Independent scrutineers such as the Deportation Data Project flagged anomalous June and March 2025 files and recommended using a late-July corrected file; the Deportation Data Project and other analysts have therefore treated early ICE releases for 2025 as unreliable until validated [2] [3]. That caveat means any publicly quoted FY2025 tally must be read as provisional unless ICE’s final “locked” tables are explicitly cited [5].
2. The leading published estimate: Migration Policy Institute’s ~340,000 figure
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), working from available government figures and supplementary analysis, estimated that ICE conducted about 340,000 deportations in FY2025, a sharp increase from the roughly 271,000 ICE removals in FY2024 [1]. MPI’s figure is framed as an estimate drawing together disparate public releases and is explicit that some components of enforcement activity—particularly CBP deportations—were not fully published by DHS at the time of MPI’s analysis [1]. Reporters and analysts relying on MPI should note MPI’s methodology blends ICE data with other public operational indicators and is therefore an authoritative estimate but not an ICE-certified final count [1].
3. Alternate signals and monitoring projects point to major increases but imperfect coverage
Human Rights First’s Flight Monitor and other NGOs documented a major rise in enforcement flights and removals-related air operations in 2025, tallying thousands of flights and increasing geographic breadth; these operational counts corroborate a surge in deportation activity but do not translate directly into a consolidated removals total because flights vary in passenger counts and removals can occur by commercial or other means not tracked by flight monitors [7] [8]. Similarly, the Deportation Data Project and academic trackers stressed the need to treat ICE’s 2025 removals files as subject to correction, which explains why NGOs and policy shops supply overlapping but non-identical totals [2] [3].
4. How DHS/ICE define “removals” and key caveats about counting
DHS’s OHSS constructs an “Action Date” from case closure and departure dates to assign removals to fiscal years and uses a standardized Persist dataset to reconcile ICE, CBP, and OFO records; removals typically reflect departures tied to administrative deportation, reinstatement of removal, expedited removal, or formal court-ordered removals, whereas “returns” and some CBP dispositions are estimated differently and may be excluded or treated separately depending on methodology [4] [9]. ICE itself emphasizes that its removals, detention, and arrest statistics use selection rules and subsets (for example, which detentions are counted in “initial book-ins”), and GAO has recommended greater clarity and public disclosure of ICE’s reporting methodologies because current practices leave room for misinterpretation [10] [6].
5. Read the numbers with context and skepticism—what to watch next
Given ICE’s repeated caveats, the best available public posture is to treat MPI’s ~340,000 as a strong, independent estimate of ICE removals in FY2025 that aligns with multiple operational signals, while recognizing that ICE’s official datasets have been in flux and may be revised or “locked” after the datasets are audited [1] [2]. Analysts should watch for ICE’s final locked FY2025 removals tables on the ICE statistics site or the OHSS annual flow report to confirm or revise these figures, and should account for definitional differences (removal vs. return vs. CBP repatriation) when comparing across sources [5] [11] [4].