How do interior ICE removals (not border returns) compare across Obama, Trump, and Biden by fiscal year?
Executive summary
Interior removals by ICE have risen and fallen across administrations, with the Obama years showing high interior removal totals in the early 2010s, Trump’s terms marked by sharp swings and politicized counting debates, and the Biden-to-Trump II transition period producing a contested surge in interior removals in FY2025; however, publicly available numbers mix different categories (interior vs. border), are reported by agencies and advocacy groups with differing agendas, and suffer from gaps that make precise year‑to‑year apples‑to‑apples comparison difficult [1] [2] [3].
1. Obama’s baseline: strong interior enforcement early, priorities later
During the Obama presidency ICE interior removals were substantial in the early 2010s, with FY2009 registering a high-water mark of nearly 238,000 interior removals and FY2011 above 223,000, establishing a historical baseline of aggressive interior enforcement before the administration formally adopted prioritization policies; by FY2014 ICE recorded roughly 316,000 total removals that year, of which about 102,000 were interior removals according to contemporaneous ICE accounting cited by analysts [1] [2].
2. The Trump years (first term): pandemic plunge then political framing
Interior arrests and removals under Trump I fell sharply in FY2020 as pandemic restrictions cut interior enforcement—interior arrests fell to about 23,932 and interior removals to roughly 62,739 that year—illustrating how operational constraints and public‑health policy can rapidly reduce removals independent of stated priorities [2]. Critics and supporters alike framed these drops through political narratives: proponents pointed to prior Obama-era prioritization as constraining ICE even before Biden, while opponents used the pandemic dip to argue against "mass deportation" claims later resurrected in political debate [2].
3. Biden’s tenure: lower interior arrest percentages, higher total removals reported
Analysts reviewing ICE data found that under Biden a smaller share of ICE’s interior arrests involved people with criminal convictions compared with later administrations, and ICE reported increases in removals in some years—Newsweek recorded Biden-era totals such as 778,000 removals in FY2024 when including border and airport returns—but the breakdown between interior removals versus border expulsions remained unclear in public summaries, complicating direct interior comparisons [4] [5]. Advocacy reporting also argued that ICE’s own spreadsheets showed ERO interior removals nearly reaching 48,000 in FY2024, signaling a partial rebound in interior operations late in the Biden term [2] [5].
4. Trump II and FY2025: a contested surge in interior removals
After the 2024 election and into FY2025, ICE and outside trackers reported sharply higher removal totals and frequent daily tallies—TRAC noted that of ICE’s FY2025 reported removals a substantial share occurred after the presidential transition, leaving figures such as 234,211 removals after the new administration assumed office and ICE averaging roughly 143 interior removals per day according to some analysts—claims that prompt dispute over whether those removals were interior arrests, border turn‑backs, or administrative reclassifications [6] [3]. The Center for Immigration Studies further parsed FY2025 interior removals to show that of those interior removals just under 115,600 had criminal convictions while smaller numbers had pending charges or were removed solely on immigration grounds—figures that reflect one advocacy perspective on targeting and criminality but which must be read against the limits of the underlying ICE spreadsheets [5].
5. Why year‑by‑year comparison remains fraught: definitions, reporting lags, and agendas
Comparing interior removals across Obama, Trump, and Biden by fiscal year is hampered by shifting definitions (interior removals versus border apprehension turn‑backs), reporting gaps and end‑of‑year lags that TRAC flags in FY2025 disclosures, and the fact that advocacy groups and media outlets lean on the same ICE spreadsheets but interpret them to different ends—CIS and some media emphasize criminal conviction shares to argue targeted enforcement, TRAC emphasizes opacity and withheld details, and outlets like Newsweek highlight aggregate totals including border actions—so any numerical comparison must be presented with caveats about what exactly is being counted and who is doing the counting [6] [5] [4] [3].