- MPI found 69% of deportations through July 31, 2026, involved people initially intercepted at the border.
- Interior-origin arrests made up 39% of July 2026 deportations, up from 28% in 2025.
- DHS had not issued a detailed monthly ICE and CBP enforcement report since January 2025.
A Migration Policy Institute analysis projects 230,000 interior deportations for 2026, below its figures for 2008 and 2009. The estimate does not support the headline claim that interior removals have reached an all-time high.
The institute published its analysis on October 22, 2026. It estimated that the administration was on track for about 660,000 deportations across fiscal year 2026, which ended September 30. That projection covers deportations overall, not just people arrested inside the country.
The analysis counted about 980,000 deportations from January 20, 2025, through July 31, 2026. Most involved people first intercepted at the border. The record claim turns on a narrower category and a projection, not a completed full-year total.
Interior deportations nevertheless climbed during the period. MPI defines these as deportations resulting from arrests that originated in communities in the U.S. interior. Marc Rosenblum, the institute’s visiting senior fellow and a former executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics, said the administration’s projected total approached the prior peaks, but fell short.
The estimate draws on federal records and separates border interceptions
MPI built its analysis from Department of Homeland Security data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and records from the Deportation Data Project. The dataset covers deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Its figures describe deportation activity, not arrests or the number of people held in detention.
MPI found that 69% of deportations from January 20, 2025, through July 31, 2026, involved people initially intercepted at the border. Interior-origin arrests accounted for 39% of deportations in July 2026, compared with 28% in 2025.
Those percentages describe different things: the 69% figure covers an 18-month period and identifies where people were first intercepted; the 39% and 28% figures track the share associated with interior-origin arrests. They should not be read as competing estimates of one identical measure.
Interior deportations rose but remained below the earlier peak
MPI’s annual projection and monthly averages show the increase, while keeping the historical comparison in view.
| Measure | Period | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Projected interior deportations | 2026 | 230,000 |
| Interior removals | 2008 | 235,000 |
| Interior removals | 2009 | 238,000 |
| Average interior-arrest deportations per month | First three months of the term | 8,000 |
| Average interior-arrest deportations per month | May through July 2026 | 19,000 |
The monthly average more than doubled between those periods. But that acceleration does not make the projected annual total a record: MPI’s estimate remains below both historical figures it cited. It is a projection, not a final tally.
The Midterm Mass Deportation claim also draws attention to a broader accounting question: which departures count as deportations. MPI estimated about 170,000 ICE grants of voluntary departure or voluntary return among the 980,000 total. These departures involve a different process from formal removals, even though MPI includes them in its discussion of deportation totals.
Different deportation measures complicate the administration’s totals
A separate ICE measure offers a competing figure: statistics posted July 20 showed 356,389 removals between October 1 and July 11, with a projected 458,000 for the year. That projection would beat the 409,849 single-year record set in 2012 under Obama. The estimates use different measures and cannot be substituted for each other.
The institute also found that 20% of the 980,000 deportations involved someone with a criminal conviction. Its analysis identified voluntary departures as a sharp change in counting and enforcement patterns. Rosenblum described the increase in voluntary departure grants as “about a tenfold increase over any number that we've seen in the historic data.”
The term “return” can include departures that do not carry the same reentry penalties associated with formal removals. Including returns changes the total. So does including border interceptions, which accounted for most deportations in MPI’s 18-month count.
DHS has also promoted a figure of more than 3 million people leaving the country. MPI’s estimate of total departures, including deportations and self-departures, ranged from 310,000 to 1.5 million. The institute cautioned that the government-promoted app tracking self-departures may count legal immigrants and U.S. citizens as well as unauthorized immigrants.
Missing monthly federal data leaves the pace harder to track
DHS had not released a detailed monthly enforcement report covering ICE and CBP arrests and deportations since January 2025. ICE’s removal dashboard also had not been updated since that month, despite saying its pages would be updated quarterly.
Rosenblum said the public receives fewer figures than the department historically released. Without a consistent monthly series, readers cannot use the dashboard to follow how the administration’s totals change over time. MPI’s projections and estimates offer a view of the trend, but its projected interior figure remains below the earlier annual totals it cited.
