Federal officials and independent researchers report vastly different deportation figures for 2025, with a gap of 280,000 between the two totals.
The Department of Homeland Security announced in December that 605,000 people had been removed since January. Border czar Tom Homan cited 579,000 deportations. Guardian analysis of ICE data counted 326,390 confirmed deportations as of mid-December. The Migration Policy Institute calculated around 340,000 ICE removals for fiscal 2025.
DHS combines ICE interior removals with CBP border removals. Guardian tracking focuses on verified ICE deportations from biweekly reports. The administration separately claims 1.9 million people “self-deported” through a government app called CBP Home, which offers free flights and $1,000 payments. Researchers exclude those figures for lack of verification.
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Detention at Historic Levels
ICE held 68,440 people as of December 14, shattering all previous records. Facilities held around 39,000 people when Trump took office in January. Detention climbed by 70 percent in eleven months. December broke records twice, with each biweekly report showing new highs.
Immigration authorities arrested more than 328,000 people in 2025, according to Guardian tracking of biweekly ICE reports. The previous detention record came during Trump’s first term in 2019, at roughly 56,000 detainees.
The administration has also stripped legal status from immigrants who entered through authorised pathways.
1.6 Million Lose Legal Status
The Trump administration revoked legal protections from over 1.6 million immigrants who entered through authorised channels. NPR reported in December this represents the largest removal of deportation protections for legal migrants in US history.
Over 936,000 people used the Biden-era CBP One programme between 2023 and January 2025 to schedule appointments at ports of entry. Officials cancelled the programme. Another 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who arrived under humanitarian parole with US sponsors lost their status. Nearly 700,000 people, mostly Venezuelans, lost Temporary Protected Status as of March.
The State Department revoked 85,000 visas across all categories, including over 8,000 student visas. That figure doubled the previous year. Authorities detained even visa holders with valid documentation, including a New Zealand mother held for 23 days with her six-year-old son over an expired travel document whilst returning from dropping her older children at Vancouver airport.
Who Gets Detained Despite “Worst of the Worst” Claims
Officials claim they target dangerous criminals. Data contradicts this. As of November, 73 percent of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction. Nearly half had neither a conviction nor pending charges. Among those with convictions, only 5 percent involved violent crimes like murder or sexual assault. The Cato Institute found equal numbers detained for immigration violations and violent crimes.
Jose and Josue Trejo Lopez spent nearly a decade appearing at ICE check-ins whilst pursuing legal status after arriving as children from El Salvador. Neither had criminal records. At a routine March appointment, agents separated them from their mother and handcuffed both brothers. By May, both were deported to El Salvador.
“We followed the law and we were punished,” Jose said.
Pang Bailey’s story shows how long-term residents became targets. The Hmong refugee lived in America for 47 years after fleeing Laos as a one-year-old. In July, she walked into her eighteenth annual check-in. An agent told her husband Scott to wait. Two hours later, another agent delivered the news. Pang was detained. Six weeks later, a military cargo plane carried her to Laos, a country she never knew.
Agents stopped Victor Avila at San Francisco airport in May whilst he returned from visiting his Air Force son stationed in Japan. Avila had held a green card since 1967. An immigration judge ruled in his favour in December. He remains in a Bakersfield detention centre whilst authorities consider an appeal. His employer organised a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $29,000 for legal fees.
Claudio Cortez-Herrera held a green card for over 20 years before ten agents surrounded him at a Grand Rapids post office in April whilst he made a house payment. Six months later, authorities deported him to Mexico over a conviction from his teenage years. He left behind two US citizen children, including a five-year-old son with autism.
The surge in detention has proved fatal for some.
Deaths Reach Two-Decade High
Thirty-one people died in ICE custody during 2025, the agency’s deadliest year since 2004. December alone recorded six deaths. Deaths occurred from seizures, heart failure, strokes, respiratory failure, tuberculosis and suicide.
Maksym Chernyak, 44, fled Kyiv during the Russia-Ukraine war and entered the US on humanitarian parole. He died of an apparent stroke at a Miami hospital in February after detention at Krome centre. Medical experts reviewing his case raised concerns about the time elapsed before staff called emergency services.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, came to the US from Mexico aged five and gained protection under the DACA programme. He died in September after falling ill at Adelanto detention centre in California. His mother said he had no known medical conditions before detention. Authorities took him during an August raid at the Fountain Valley car wash where he’d worked for about 15 years.
Detainees in multiple facilities report unsanitary conditions, inadequate food and poor medical care. A federal judge in Chicago ordered ICE in November to rectify what he called “serious conditions” at a Broadview, Illinois processing facility. His order directed officials to provide detainees with clean sleeping mats, three meals daily, showers, hygiene products and phone access.
Mexico and Central America Receive Most Removals
Mexico accounts for the largest share of arrests this year at 35.8 percent (69,364 people through autumn). Guatemala follows at 18.6 percent (36,104 arrests) and Honduras at 14.4 percent (27,978 arrests). The Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras together received more than half of all May removals.
South American countries show the fastest growth in deportation rates. Ecuador rose from 8th to 4th position with 169 percent year-over-year growth (22,936 arrests). Venezuela jumped from 12th to 7th with 260 percent growth (12,445 arrests). Colombia’s removal numbers doubled to 20,123 arrests.
Third-Country Deportations Expand
The administration has also removed people to countries where they have no ties. In March, nearly 250 Venezuelan men flew to El Salvador’s maximum security prison called CECOT. President Nayib Bukele reportedly agreed to accept transfers of convicted criminals. A ProPublica investigation found only 32 had US criminal convictions, mostly for nonviolent offences like retail theft. The US reportedly paid El Salvador approximately $5 million for the agreement.
Several men were deported to countries they’d never been to. In May, eight detainees thought they were transferring from a Texas ICE facility to Louisiana. The plane flew to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti instead. Officials shackled the men to a shipping container for multiple weeks before authorities sent them to South Sudan in July. All the men, aged between 44 and 70, had been living in the US after completing prison sentences.
Authorities sent five more men to Eswatini that same month, where officials detained them in Matsapha maximum security prison. The Supreme Court ruled in June that the administration could resume expedited deportations to countries other than migrants’ places of origin, though lower courts have blocked some efforts.
2025 Deportations vs Obama, Biden and Trump’s First Term
President Obama oversaw roughly 3 million removals across eight years. Most were formal removal orders rather than voluntary returns. Biden’s administration recorded 4.6 million removals between January 2021 and November 2024, though most came as voluntary returns at the border. His FY 2024 total reached 272,000 formal removals.
Trump’s first term recorded approximately 2.1 million removals over four years. His second term will exceed those numbers if current rates continue. Some sources count only formal removals whilst others combine removals, returns and expulsions, which partly explains why Obama’s eight-year total (3 million) appears lower than Biden’s four years (4.6 million).
The shift from Trump’s first term to his second isn’t about volume. Interior enforcement now exceeds border removals for the first time since at least 2014. ICE arrests average over 1,000 people daily in states with full cooperation agreements. Nearly half of all ICE arrests happen through local jails and law enforcement partnerships. States limiting cooperation see substantially lower arrest rates.
Border crossings fell dramatically during 2025. CBP recorded 444,000 migrant encounters at and between ports of entry in FY 2025, down from 2.1 million the previous year. The 238,000 Border Patrol encounters represent a 55-year low. 75 percent of encounters occurred in the final four months of the Biden administration. The steep decrease allowed the administration to redirect Border Patrol assets to cities including Los Angeles and Chicago for interior enforcement operations.
What Comes in 2026
ICE received billions in new congressional funding and is recruiting thousands more officers. The agency aims for 3,000 daily arrests, though it currently averages around 965. Detention capacity is expanding to a projected 116,000 beds with personnel increasing to approximately 21,000 officers.
Temporary Protected Status expires for multiple countries in 2026. Those stripped of legal status have no clear path forward. They face potential removal from communities where many have lived for decades. The administration plans to expand third-country deportation agreements, potentially sending migrants to African nations and other regions far from their countries of origin. Federal courts have blocked some efforts, with legal battles continuing.
2025 represents a fundamental shift in American immigration enforcement, regardless of whether the true count is 326,390 verified removals or 605,000 claimed deportations. Families remain separated after decades. Legal residents face detention at airports and routine appointments. Detention facilities operate at historic capacity with deteriorating conditions. The administration has moved beyond targeting those here without authorisation to include many with legal status who built lives here over generations.
