What were the total US deportations in 2024 and 2025 compared to 2019–2023?
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Executive summary
U.S. deportations jumped sharply in FY2024 to 271,484 removals, the highest single-year ICE total in nearly a decade and a 90.4% increase over FY2023 [1]. Partial 2024 and 2025 tallies and multiple agency reports show removals and repatriations across different federal programs running in the hundreds of thousands, but sources differ on definitions (removals vs. repatriations/expulsions) and on how complete 2025 data are [2] [3] [4].
1. Big picture: FY2024 spike — the clearest headline
ICE reported 271,484 deportations for the fiscal year running Oct. 1, 2023–Sept. 30, 2024, which outlets called the highest ICE total in nearly a decade and a 90.4% rise from FY2023 [1]. Migration Policy Center and ICE quarterly releases document that much of this increase followed the end of Title 42 expulsions and a post‑Title 8 surge in expedited removals, including an unprecedented 316,000 processed via expedited removal from May 2023–March 2024 [4] [3].
2. Counting problems: “deportations,” “removals,” “repatriations,” and expulsions are not identical
Public reporting mixes categories. ICE’s “deportations” or “removals” (the 271,484 FY2024 figure) differ from broader “repatriation” tallies that include returns and Title 42 expulsions; USAFacts notes 1.1 million repatriations in 2023 and tracked about 678,000 repatriations in 2024 through November using a broader definition that includes expulsions and returns [2]. DHS and ICE dashboards also separate ERO removals from Customs and Border Protection expulsions, meaning single headline numbers can understate or overstate total federal actions depending on the metric used [3] [2].
3. 2019–2023 baseline: variation and a 2019 high point
ICE removals historically fluctuate: demandsage and other compilations note 2019 removals around the high hundreds of thousands (for example, 359,885 is cited for 2019 in one compilation), and FY2019 is often used as a comparator for later years [5]. The specific FY2019 ICE removal figure commonly cited elsewhere is near 267,000; FY2024’s 271,484 thus slightly exceeded that ICE-era benchmark, underlining the scale of the 2024 rise [1] [5]. Migration Policy Center and ICE data show large year-to-year swings driven by policy (Title 42), operational capacity and legal authorities [4] [3].
4. Early-to-mid 2024 and 2025: partial data point to continued high enforcement but incomplete tallies
ICE and DHS published dashboards through December 31, 2024, and ICE’s quarter reports showed months with nearly 68,000 removals in a single quarter of FY2024 — a steep increase over FY2023 quarterly rates [6] [3]. Sources for 2025 are fragmentary: nongovernmental trackers and media cite large numbers in early 2025 (for example, The Global Statistics reports 207,000+ deportations by June 2025, implying an annualized pace that could exceed 400,000), but that compilation is not an official DHS or ICE source and the administration of counts and definitions is inconsistent across outlets [7]. Reuters and others describe operational changes in 2025 — more detentions, more voluntary departures while detained, and policy pushes — but do not publish a consolidated official 2025 removal total in the materials provided here [8].
5. Who was deported matters — criminality and policy focus differ across sources
ICE’s FY2024 breakdown says roughly one‑third of those deported faced charges or convictions for criminal activity (88,763 of 271,484) — a statistic ICE and outlets used to frame enforcement priorities [1]. Other reporting (Wikipedia summarizing internal documents) and think‑tank analyses say a substantial share of recent ICE arrests had no criminal convictions, raising questions about selection criteria and priorities [9]. Migration Policy Center notes that the surge after Title 42 ended included many single adults processed through expedited removal, which is administratively faster than family removals and can inflate counts quickly [4].
6. How to interpret totals: methodological caution and competing narratives
Available sources show large increases in removals in FY2024 and strong enforcement activity into 2025, but they also reveal the difficulty of apples‑to‑apples comparison across years because agencies and reporters use different metrics (removals vs. repatriations vs. expulsions; ICE vs. CBP counts) and because Title 42-era expulsions artificially boosted 2020–2022 tallies [2] [4] [3]. Independent compilations [7] [5] present higher 2025 estimates but rely on partial, sometimes non‑official data. DHS/ICE dashboards and quarterly reports remain the most authoritative sources for official ICE removals through 2024 [3] [6].
Limitations: available sources do not provide a single authoritative, fully reconciled 2025 annual total; they mix definitions and partial time windows, and some third‑party tallies [7] are not official DHS/ICE releases. Use ICE/DHS dashboards for official FY figures and treat broader “repatriation” totals as inclusive but not directly comparable to ICE removals [3] [2] [1].