Fact check: Deportation number per year under different presidential admin

1. Summary of the results

The analyses reveal significant discrepancies in deportation statistics across different sources, making it challenging to provide definitive numbers for each presidential administration.

According to one source, Biden oversaw 4.6 million removals between 2021 and 2024, while Trump oversaw 2.1 million removals during his first term, and Obama oversaw 5.3 million removals during his two terms ^[1]. However, another source provides conflicting figures, stating that Obama removed 1.6 million undocumented immigrants in his first term and 1.5 million in his second term (totaling 3.1 million), Trump had 1.2 million illegal immigrants deported during his first term, and Biden removed 682,000 people ^[2].

The most recent data shows that nearly 5,700 illegal immigrants were deported in the first two weeks of President Trump's second term ^[1], indicating an aggressive enforcement approach in his current administration.

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original statement lacks crucial context about how deportation statistics are calculated and categorized. The analyses reveal that numbers can be complicated due to different definitions of deportations, including 'removals' and 'expulsions under the public health order, Title 42' ^[2]. This distinction is critical because it affects how administrations' enforcement records are compared.

Political parties and advocacy groups benefit significantly from presenting deportation data in ways that support their narratives:

• Republican politicians and immigration hardliners benefit from emphasizing higher deportation numbers under Democratic administrations to argue for stricter enforcement
• Democratic politicians and immigrant rights organizations benefit from highlighting lower numbers to demonstrate more humane policies
• Media organizations benefit from sensationalizing these statistics to drive engagement and readership

The analyses also show that ICE provides official statistics on arrests, detentions, removals, and alternatives to detention ^[3], but the original statement doesn't specify which metric is being requested or whether it refers to ICE operations specifically or broader immigration enforcement.

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original statement is overly simplistic and potentially misleading because it requests "deportation numbers" without acknowledging the complexity of immigration enforcement statistics. The conflicting data between sources (p1_s2 and p1_s3) demonstrates how different methodologies and definitions can produce vastly different results.

The statement fails to account for:

• Different types of removals and expulsions that are often conflated in public discourse
• Varying enforcement priorities across administrations that affect how resources are allocated
• External factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Title 42 policies that significantly impacted removal operations during certain periods

Without specifying the exact metrics, time periods, and definitions being used, any comparison of "deportation numbers" across presidential administrations risks perpetuating misleading narratives that serve political rather than factual purposes.