How many ice were under Clinton’s administration in Obama since?
Executive summary
Clinton’s two-term period is reported to have the highest aggregate expulsions—about 12.3 million when combining removals and returns—while the Obama administration recorded far fewer total deportation actions, commonly cited as roughly 5.3 million removals and a steep drop in “returns” to about 2.1 million; these totals reflect different mixes of enforcement, administrative returns, and policy emphasis rather than a simple apples‑to‑apples count [1] [2] [3]. The contrast owes as much to shifting definitions and operational practice (CBP vs. ICE roles, returns vs. removals) as to changes in executive priorities [1] [4].
1. Clinton-era totals: the headline 12.3 million figure and what it means
Multiple reporting threads point to roughly 12.3 million expulsions during the Clinton administration when removals and returns are combined, and to the fact that the vast majority of that total—about 11.4 million—were "returns" rather than formal removals, meaning many apprehended migrants were processed to voluntarily depart rather than receive formal removal orders [1] [5]. That large Clinton total is often presented as the historical high water mark for recorded deportation-related actions, but it is crucial to note that the Clinton-era practice counted many border-era voluntary or administrative returns alongside formal interior removals, inflating comparability with later years if one does not separate categories [1].
2. Obama-era totals: fewer expulsions, different focus
Analyses report that the Obama administration completed roughly 5.3 million deportations when counting border and interior cases together and that returns—the voluntary or administrative departures that dominated earlier eras—fell sharply under Obama to an estimated 2.1 million, reflecting a policy shift toward prioritizing removals of criminals and recent border crossers rather than maximizing aggregate numeric counts [2] [3] [4]. Migration Policy and other observers document that Obama’s enforcement memos and later DHS guidance narrowed ICE priorities, producing higher removals of targeted groups even as total apprehensions and overall deportation counts declined relative to Clinton and Bush-era totals [4].
3. Definitions matter: returns vs. removals, CBP vs. ICE
A central reason the numbers look starkly different is definitional: “returns” and administrative departures (often handled by CBP at the border) were predominant in the Clinton-era totals, whereas later reporting distinguishes “removals” (formal deportation orders tied more to ICE interior enforcement) from returns, and counts shift depending on whether one aggregates CBP expulsions and returns with ICE removals [1] [4]. Migration Policy explicitly warns that many Clinton-era figures are dominated by returns and that until Obama-era changes, border apprehensions typically resulted in voluntary departures rather than formal removals—making direct head-to-head comparisons misleading unless categories are disaggregated [1].
4. What the comparison actually shows
When compared on the same terms—total expulsions including returns—Clinton’s tenure registers roughly 12.3 million actions versus Obama’s lower aggregate counts (about 5.3 million deportations plus far fewer returns), a difference driven by Clinton-era operational reliance on mass returns and Obama-era prioritization and narrower interior enforcement [1] [2] [3]. The portrayal of Obama as “deporter in chief” stems from concentrated interior removals of criminal and recent crossers even while the aggregate volume of returns dropped from Clinton-era levels [4] [3].
5. Alternative readings and caveats from the sources
Some datasets and analysts emphasize different measures—interior removals, CBP expulsions, or DHS yearbook tallies—so totals vary by source and analytic choice, and watchdogs caution that numerical comparisons without parsing administrative returns, enforcement returns, removals, and expulsions can mislead [2] [1]. Reporting also reflects policy framing: migration-policy analysis highlights definitional shifts and priorities [1] [4], while other outlets and interest groups may emphasize different slices of the data to make political or operational points [6] [7].
6. Bottom line
Using the standard aggregated framing cited in the provided reporting, Clinton’s two terms saw about 12.3 million deportation-related actions (with ~11.4 million returns), while the Obama administration’s total deportation-related actions were substantially lower—roughly 5.3 million removals with returns reduced to about 2.1 million—an outcome driven by shifting enforcement priorities and important definitional differences between returns and removals that researchers caution must be unpacked before drawing policy conclusions [1] [2] [3].