How do Title 42 expulsions affect the reported removals totals in FY2020–FY2024 datasets?
Executive summary
Title 42 expulsions materially altered the face of U.S. “removals” statistics from FY2020 through FY2024 by creating a parallel, public‑health removal stream that swelled reported expulsions during 2020–2023 and then shifted counts back into Title 8 removal/return categories after the policy ended in May 2023 [1] [2]. Because agencies used different legal authorities and tracking dashboards for expulsions versus traditional immigration removals, headline removal totals across FY2020–FY2024 reflect both a change in enforcement practice and a change in how encounters were recorded, not simply a one‑line increase or decrease in actual people removed [3] [2].
1. How Title 42 rewrote the removals ledger: expulsions versus Title 8 removals
From March 2020 to May 11, 2023, DHS used a CDC public‑health order—commonly called Title 42—to “expel” irregular border crossers quickly, often to Mexico or to the country of last transit, a process operationally distinct from Title 8 immigration removals and returns; CBP and ICE treated these expulsions as rapid public‑health departures rather than formal removals under the INA [3] [2]. The practical effect was a large volume of expulsions recorded during FY2020–FY2023—estimates range from more than 1.7 million over two years to roughly 2.8 million total expulsions cited by advocacy groups—which dominated enforcement statistics and masked declines in traditional Title 8 removals during that period [1] [4].
2. Counting conventions matter: why aggregate “removals” fluctuate
Federal dashboards and analysts have to choose whether to present expulsions, Title 8 removals, returns and encounters as a single stream or as separate categories; that choice drives apparent removal totals across FY2020–FY2024 [2]. CBP’s dedicated Title 42/Title 8 dashboard existed through FY2023 but ceased updates for FY2024, forcing users to stitch together CBP, ICE and DHS products to compare apples to apples [2]. Migration Policy Center’s later tallies show a surge of traditional Title 8 removals/returns after Title 42 ended—DHS removed or returned roughly 660,000 people between May 12, 2023 and April 3, 2024 or about 775,000 in the 12 months after Title 42 ended—because many people were processed under Title 8 pathways that had been suppressed or altered while expulsions were in effect [5] [6].
3. The transition effect: FY2023–FY2024 spike reflects policy, not pure behavioral change
When Title 42 ended, the removal bookkeeping shifted: many migrants who would have been rapidly expelled began to be processed under expedited removal, returned, or placed into formal removal proceedings—actions recorded as Title 8 removals or returns—creating a visible jump in Title 8 removal totals in FY2024 compared with FY2022–FY2023 [6] [5]. DHS itself reported hundreds of thousands of expulsions in the first half of FY2023 (over 440,000) and separately tracked returns/removals, demonstrating that the policy—more than a sudden upswing in deportation appetite—reallocated where and how departures were logged [7].
4. Recidivism, multiple encounters and the illusion of larger flows
Title 42-era enforcement also produced higher recidivism and repeated “encounters” counts—CBP encounters count each interdiction even if it’s the same person—which inflated the volume feeding removal and expulsions dashboards and complicated comparisons across fiscal years [1] [6]. Migration Policy highlights that from FY2021 through early 2024 authorities recorded roughly 9.4 million encounters, many repeat crossings, which pressures agencies to process each event and affects reported removal/return activity by tripling encounter‑based metrics compared with prior periods [6].
5. Limits, competing narratives and what the numbers don’t resolve
Sources differ on terminology and totals—advocacy groups cite cumulative expulsions of roughly 2.8 million, DHS and CBP emphasize operational distinctions and report hundreds of thousands of expulsions in discrete windows, and academic trackers later show Title 8 removals rebounding after the policy ended—so reconciling a single authoritative FY2020–FY2024 removals total requires careful disaggregation of expulsions, Title 8 removals, returns and multiple encounters [4] [7] [6]. The public record and dashboards (which shifted in FY2024) document the broad mechanism: Title 42 moved many departures into an expulsion category through FY2023 and the end of Title 42 shifted those departures back into Title 8 counts—producing a marked change in reported removal totals that reflects a change in legal authority and counting, not only a change in enforcement intensity [2] [3] [5].