How many interior removals (from inside the U.S.) occurred under Obama compared with border expulsions?

1. What the raw totals show—and why they can mislead

The Department of Homeland Security-era totals that critics and boosters cite as “deportations” combine several different actions: formal removals processed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), expedited removals at the border, and administrative or enforcement returns at ports or across the border; over the Obama years the cumulative count of formal removals exceeded 3 million, but that figure mixes interior removals and border-initiated actions that have different policy and social implications ^{[1] [4]}.

2. Interior removals under Obama: high early, lower later

Interior removals—those initiated from inside the United States and largely handled by ICE—were particularly extensive during Obama’s first term, averaging more than 200,000 per year according to policy analysts, and the administration inherited robust enforcement systems that produced very large interior caseloads early on ^{[2] [5]}. By contrast, by FY2016 the number of interior removals had dropped to the tens of thousands—one analysis cites roughly 65,000 interior removals that year—with a large share of those removed from the interior having criminal convictions under DHS priority guidance ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Border expulsions and returns: a parallel track that swells totals

A substantial portion of the Obama-era totals came from returns and expulsions at or immediately after the border rather than from long-term residents removed after interior enforcement; returns at the southern border and other expedited border actions were counted alongside ICE removals in aggregate figures, inflating total “deportation” numbers relative to the subset of interior removals ^{[5] [2]}. This counting matter became even more salient in later administrations, where border expulsions—especially under Title 42 in the COVID era—dominated totals in some years, underscoring that overall removal figures are a composite of distinct enforcement pathways ^[4].

4. Who was being removed from the interior—and how priorities mattered

Policy changes in 2014 established enforcement priorities that concentrated interior removals on recent border crossers and noncitizens convicted of serious crimes; by FY2016 the interior removals that did occur were disproportionately of people meeting those priority categories (for example, analysts report that more than 90 percent of interior removals were of noncitizens with convictions in some accounts, and other work estimates roughly 92 percent of interior removals met the stated priorities in FY2016) ^{[5] [3]}. Civil liberties groups and critics have argued this speed-and-priority focus also reduced due-process protections in many expedited procedures, a point underscored by NGOs reviewing removal-processing practices ^[6].

5. Bottom line and limits of available data

Answering “how many interior removals under Obama compared with border expulsions” requires recognizing two solid, sourced points: total formal removals under Obama’s two terms were roughly 3 million, and interior removals constituted a large share early in his presidency—averaging over 200,000 per year—but declined to tens of thousands by FY2016 as border returns and priority-focused interior enforcement changed the mix ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The precise split year-by-year varies across reports because DHS aggregates multiple removal types and reporting practices evolved in the mid-2000s, meaning comparisons must be read in context and cannot be reduced to a single neat ratio without choosing specific fiscal years and definitions ^{[7] [4]}.