Fact check: How many legal US citizens have been deported or detained by ICE in 2025?

1. Summary of the results

Based on the available analyses, no specific data exists regarding the number of legal US citizens deported or detained by ICE in 2025. The sources consistently indicate that this precise information is not publicly available or regularly released.

However, the analyses do provide relevant context about ICE operations in 2025:

• ICE held 56,945 people in detention as of July 27, 2025, with 71.1% of current detainees having no criminal convictions ^[1]
• ICE has identified 435,000 unauthorized immigrants with criminal convictions in the United States who were not in custody as of July 2025 ^[2]
• By the end of May 2025, ICE had arrested 752 non-citizens convicted of murder and 1,693 convicted of sexual assault ^[2]
• The number of people deported by ICE has not been regularly released to the public ^[3]

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original question lacks several critical pieces of context that emerge from the analyses:

• Historical precedent of citizen deportations: The Trump administration has previously admitted to mistakenly deporting a Maryland man to El Salvador, demonstrating that legal citizens can be wrongfully targeted ^{[4] [5]}
• Systemic detention issues: The analyses reveal that the Trump administration has implemented policies that prevent judges from granting bond to undocumented immigrants, potentially increasing detention numbers regardless of citizenship status ^[6]
• Due process concerns: Multiple sources highlight concerns about due process and the potential for human rights abuses in the current immigration crackdown ^[5]
• Data transparency problems: ICE's practice of not regularly releasing deportation statistics ^[3] makes it difficult to track the full scope of enforcement actions, including potential citizen detentions

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original question, while factual in nature, may inadvertently perpetuate several problematic assumptions:

• Assumption of data availability: The question presumes that specific statistics on legal citizen deportations/detentions are tracked and publicly available, when the analyses show that ICE does not regularly release comprehensive deportation data ^[3]
• Framing as routine occurrence: By asking "how many" rather than "whether any," the question may normalize what should be considered exceptional errors in the immigration system
• Missing historical context: The question fails to acknowledge that wrongful deportations of citizens have occurred under previous Trump administration policies ^{[4] [5]}, which provides crucial context for understanding current risks

The analyses suggest that while specific 2025 numbers are unavailable, the Trump administration's immigration policies create conditions where citizen detentions and deportations can occur through policy changes that limit judicial oversight and due process protections ^{[7] [6]}.