How many people have ICE deported under Trump, as of 23 Jan 2026

1. What the best available count says: a near-291,000 ICE removals figure

A careful tally anchored in agency reporting and TRAC’s analysis puts ICE removals at about 290,603 since President Trump returned to the White House: TRAC reports 234,211 removals after Trump assumed office in the FY2025 period and adds that ICE posted 56,392 removals so far in FY2026, yielding a combined total of roughly 290,603 removals attributed to ICE ^[1].

2. Why other headlines say “hundreds of thousands” or more — different actors and definitions

Many outlets and officials cite broader “hundreds of thousands” deportations because they aggregate removals carried out by both ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or use looser labels like “deportations” or “deportation-related actions”; Migration Policy estimates about 400,000 removals in the administration’s first 250 days split roughly 234,000 by ICE and 166,000 by CBP, which explains why some reporting inflates the ICE-only figure when combining agencies ^[2].

3. Counting problems: removals vs. arrests, removals by ICE vs. CBP, fiscal-year timing

Numbers vary because “removals” can be tallied by fiscal year, by agency, or by operational category; TRAC explicitly adds FY2025 and FY2026 ICE-posted removals to arrive at its total ^[1], while other sources report arrests, detentions, facility population, or joint ICE+CBP tallies — for example, DHS and news outlets have described “hundreds of thousands” deportations since the administration began, which often reflect combined agency activity rather than ICE-only removals ^[3][4].

4. Independent and advocacy tallies underscore scale but also show methodological differences

Migration Policy and other researchers track distinct slices — MPI states ICE was responsible for about 234,000 removals in the first 250 days, which matches TRAC’s separate count for the FY2025 post-inauguration period, but MPI also includes CBP’s 166,000 removals to produce the larger 400,000 figure reported for the same timeframe ^[2]. Advocacy groups and reporters point to record detention populations and expedited removals as context — for instance, detention capacity and daily custody numbers rose sharply under this administration, a condition that has driven higher direct-from-custody removals, though those metrics are about detention pressure rather than an independent deportation count ^[5][6].

5. How officials frame the story — administration claims and political aims

The administration and DHS have framed enforcement as a large-scale success, pointing to massive redeployments, expanded detention capacity and more agents to justify high removal numbers, and DHS statements tout “hundreds of thousands” deportations and an ongoing ramp-up of operations ^[4][7]. Political messaging aims to show progress toward ambitious stated goals — including past public targets discussed internally — even as independent counting separates agency-specific removals from border enforcement totals ^[8][7].

6. Caveats, open questions and the record through 23 Jan 2026

The most defensible ICE-only number available in the reporting reviewed is TRAC’s combined count of about 290,603 ICE removals through the posted FY2025 and early FY2026 data, while broader totals that include CBP reach into the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands and explain why many outlets describe “hundreds of thousands” deportations; differences in agency scope, fiscal-year cutoffs, and definitions of “removal” account for the spread in publicly reported figures ^[1][2][3]. Sources used here do not provide a single ICE “deported under Trump” number stamped with the date 23 Jan 2026 beyond the compilations cited; where sources diverge, the distinctions and likely reasons for divergence are described above ^[1][2][3].