How did removal and expulsion metrics change under Trump and Biden when accounting for Title 42 expulsions and interior enforcement priorities?
Executive summary
Counting Title 42 expulsions reshuffles the headline numbers: pandemic-era expulsions produced far larger tallies under both administrations than traditional deportations, and while the Biden era recorded more total expulsions (driven by Title 42 use through May 2023), his interior enforcement deliberately narrowed to criminal and public‑safety priorities—producing fewer formal ICE removals early in his term even as border expulsions surged [1] [2] Trump-vs-Biden-ICE-Arrests-Removals" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[3]. Distinguishing expulsions (Title 42) from formal removals (deportations/removals after due process) is essential to understand how enforcement emphasis—not just raw totals—changed between Trump and Biden [4] [5].
1. Title 42 transformed the math of “removals” and who gets counted
A new class of rapid expulsions under a public‑health statute meant that millions of encounters were recorded as outbound movements without the legal consequences of formal deportations, and those expulsions dominate pandemic‑era statistics: CBP and downstream reporting attribute some 2.8 million Title 42 expulsions overall—with the majority occurring during the Biden years before Title 42 ended in May 2023—while Trump’s first Title 42 period accounted for a smaller share (roughly 462,792 expulsions through January 2021 per WOLA) [1] [6] [2].
2. Volume vs. seriousness: expulsions are not deportations in effect or consequence
Multiple outlets stress that Title 42 expulsions carry fewer legal penalties than formal removals—no full immigration process, no automatic long bars on reentry, and often no criminal record—so a higher count of expulsions under Biden does not equate to a broader use of formal deportation machinery or longer‑term removals of settled populations [1] [7] [4]. Reporting from Reuters, the New York Times and Migration Policy underscores that many expelled migrants simply reattempted crossings, inflating expulsion tallies relative to durable removals [1] [7] [4].
3. Interior priorities diverged: narrower ICE targets under Biden
Inside the United States, enforcement posture shifted. The Biden administration issued guidance tightening ICE priorities to focus on national‑security and serious criminal cases, which analysts note reduced the breadth of interior arrests and formal removals early in the term even as border expulsions climbed [3]. ICE’s public ERO materials and commentary explain that interior removals are intelligence‑driven and constrained by priorities, capacity and legal process—factors that limit the raw number of formal removals compared to border expulsions [8] [3].
4. Trump’s use of Title 42 set the precedent; Biden scaled the throughput
The Trump administration created the Title 42 expulsions mechanism in March 2020 and applied it aggressively; Biden retained and then expanded operational reliance on expulsions at scale, in part because the policy’s speed and dependence on Mexican cooperation made high throughput possible [2] [9]. Pew’s analysis shows that while Trump’s months often saw 80%+ of encounters end in expulsion, that percentage fell under Biden even as the absolute number of expulsions rose—an indication that encounter volumes, nationality mixes, and diplomatic arrangements with Mexico altered how expulsions translated to totals [10] [9].
5. What the numbers mean for policy comparison and political claims
Claims that “Biden deported more than Trump” are technically true if one collapses expulsions and removals into a single tally, but that framing obscures key distinctions: Title 42 expulsions are administratively faster and legally different from deportations ordered after due process, and Biden’s interior enforcement tightened to prioritize public‑safety threats [1] [7] [3]. Analysts and advocates draw different inferences—some argue Title 42’s continuation under Biden reflects policy continuity with Trump [4], while others highlight the contrast between high border expulsions and narrower interior removals as evidence of different enforcement philosophies [3] [9].
6. Limits of available reporting and takeaways for evaluating future counts
Public dashboards and reporting (CBP, ICE, Migration Policy, Reuters, NYT, Pew, WOLA) provide clear evidence that Title 42 dominated pandemic‑era removal metrics, but granular crosswalks—who reentered, who later received formal removal orders, and how diplomatic arrangements shaped expulsions—remain unevenly reported; consequently, comparisons must always separate expulsions from adjudicated deportations to avoid misleading conclusions [11] [8] [4]. Policymakers and the public should therefore read “higher removal numbers” with the caveat that much of the increase during 2020–2023 reflects a distinct administrative tool—Title 42 expulsions—rather than a wholesale change in interior deportation policy [1] [3].