Which president had the most criminal deportations
Executive summary
Barack Obama oversaw the largest number of formal removals (deportations) in recent U.S. history and, on the balance of available academic and government statistics, is the president most associated with the highest counts of criminal and non‑criminal removals during his tenure; analysts and datasets, however, distinguish "removals" from "returns" and differ over how many deportations were of people with criminal convictions, leaving exact rankings of strictly "criminal deportations" imperfect [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Obama’s record: the numbers and the nuance
The Obama administration recorded the highest annual total of removals in modern times—including a peak of roughly 438,421 formal removals in fiscal year 2013—and more than 2 million removals over his two terms, a volume that has led multiple researchers to label him the era’s highest‑deporting president [1] [2]; scholarly reviews add that Obama’s enforcement strategy explicitly prioritized people with criminal convictions and recent crossers, which increased criminal‑case removals early in his presidency even as the share of criminal convictions among removals shifted over time [2] [5].
2. Why “criminal deportations” is a slippery metric
Agencies and scholars use different categories—removals, returns, arrests, removals with a prior criminal conviction, and removals after detention by CBP versus ICE—so counting only "criminal deportations" depends on definitions that vary across DHS releases and third‑party analyses; independent fact checks and academic work warn that fields like departure dates and conviction status are unevenly recorded, which creates an incomplete picture when attempting a strict criminal‑only ranking [4] [3] [2].
3. How other administrations compare (Bush, Trump, Biden claims)
Historical comparisons show George W. Bush and Clinton had lower annual removal rates than Obama, and Cato’s long‑range review found Obama removed the highest percentage of the estimated unauthorized population per year among recent presidents through 2018—though earlier presidents like Clinton oversaw huge totals when returns are combined with removals [3] [6]. The Trump administrations (both terms referenced in contemporary materials) and the 2025 DHS releases trumpet large enforcement totals and high shares of criminal‑alien arrests, but independent analyses indicate that in several recent reporting periods Trump’s deportation totals did not surpass Obama’s multi‑year removals, and some DHS claims about self‑deportations and mass removals require cautious reading [7] [8] [4] [9].
4. Academic consensus and independent trackers
Peer‑reviewed analyses and university studies conclude fewer people were deported annually under Trump than under Obama or Bush in the periods they analyzed, and they document that Obama’s policies produced a higher volume of removals overall with a notable focus on those with criminal records in certain years—supporting the conclusion that Obama, not Trump, presided over the largest numbers of removals including many tied to criminal convictions in recent decades [5] [1] [2].
5. Conclusion and limits of the record
Given the weight of DHS yearbooks, Pew reporting, Migration Policy Institute and academic studies, Barack Obama stands as the president under whom the greatest number of formal removals occurred in recent U.S. history and who is most associated with high counts of criminal removals—yet an exact, uncontested tally of "criminal deportations" per president is not possible from the cited sources alone because of shifting definitions, reporting fields, and the mix of removals versus returns across administrations [1] [2] [4] [3].