The Migration Policy Institute counted about 980,000 deportations during the first 18 months of President Donald Trump’s second administration, from January 20, 2025, through July 31, 2026. Its annualized pace put the administration on track for about 660,000 people in fiscal year 2026, short of its stated target of 1 million deportations a year.
The institute released its analysis Thursday, October 22, 2026. Its count includes both formal removals and returns, not only people formally removed from the country.
The annualized pace is 26 percent above the fiscal-year 2021–2024 average under President Joe Biden. It also exceeds the annualized 620,000 during Trump’s first year back in office.
But the current rate remains below the historical peak. The report puts deportations at 1.86 million in FY 2000, during President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Border cases still account for most deportations
The analysis found that 69 percent of the deportations carried out by ICE and CBP came from unauthorized immigrants first intercepted at the border. About 680,000 people were turned around there or arrested there and deported after processing. Another 300,000 had been arrested inside the United States.
“Despite everything happening inside the country, most deportations are still the result of encounters at the border,” Marc Rosenblum, the report’s author, said. The former DHS statistics official said the figures show border encounters remain central even as enforcement inside the country expands.
Interior arrests made up a growing share of the total. Their share rose from 28 percent in 2025 to 39 percent in July 2026.
The monthly pace of deportations linked to interior arrests also more than doubled. It averaged 8,000 per month during the first three months of Trump’s second term, then reached 19,000 per month between May and July 2026.
Many people counted had no criminal conviction
Among ICE deportations that excluded border turnarounds, 61 percent, or 390,000, involved people who had lived in the United States for at least two years. Some 15 percent, or 90,000, had been in the country for 10 years or longer.
Across the full count, 20 percent, or 190,000, involved a person convicted of a crime. Convicted criminals accounted for 31 percent of removals, compared with an average criminality rate of 44 percent for fiscal years 2009–2021.
The most common convictions among criminal removals were illegal entry or re-entry, at 23 percent, and traffic offenses, including driving under the influence, at 21 percent. Rosenblum said the figures did not indicate that the administration was deporting “the worst of the worst.” He said that, even among people with convictions, records more often involved immigration or traffic infractions than violent or other serious crimes.
The report also found that 71 percent, or about 280,000, of those deported after at least two years in the United States had no criminal conviction. Among those who had lived in the country for at least 10 years, 61 percent, or 57,000, had no conviction.
Voluntary departures pushed the total higher
About 170,000 of the deportations were ICE grants of voluntary departure or voluntary return, a record high. Under voluntary departure, people agree to leave and give up their immigration court cases; some may later be able to return to the United States.
Some immigrant advocates and lawyers say people accept that option to get out of ICE detention, rather than continue fighting their cases. The institute described the growing share of returns, rather than formal removals, as a major break from the period before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A thin monthly data record leaves the trend harder to track
DHS has not released a detailed monthly report covering ICE and CBP arrests and deportations since January 2025. Rosenblum and the institute drew on records obtained from DHS through the Freedom of Information Act, including data gathered by the University of California’s Deportation Data Project.
Rosenblum is an MPI Visiting Senior Fellow and former executive director of the DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics. He had worked at DHS since 2016 and led the statistics office from 2023. He resigned in July, citing what he called the administration’s “war on immigrants.”
Doris Meissner, director of the institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program, said the analysis addressed a gap in public understanding as the government directs more resources and policy attention toward arrests and deportations.
The target faces court backlogs and disputed departure estimates
The report points to several obstacles to reaching the annual target. Migrants now come from a wider range of countries than in earlier periods, when many unauthorized immigrants came from Mexico and did not often seek asylum. Immigration courts also face significant backlogs. People who have lived in the country longer may have more chances to contest removal, while the government typically has greater authority to fast-track cases involving people arrested at the border.
The administration has devoted about $240 billion to its immigration agenda. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristi Noem in March, promising more efficient and discreet ICE arrests. During his tenure, the deaths of Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araújo in Texas and Colombian national Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero in Maine, along with shootings that wounded other migrants, brought renewed attention to ICE operations. Raids have become less conspicuous, while detention records reached new highs, exceeding 50,000 monthly arrests consecutively over the past three months.
DHS officials have maintained that living in the country without authorization is enough reason for deportation. On October 1, Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, told a Florida audience that “Mass deportation is happening.” He also said, “I think September’s going to be the highest deportations of any month in the history of ICE,” then added, “Wait until you see what we do next year.”
A separate count of people who leave without being arrested remains disputed. DHS claimed earlier this year that more than 2.2 million people had “self-deported,” apparently based on survey estimates of a declining immigrant population. Rosenblum put departures by immigrants who had been in the country for at least a year, including legal and unauthorized residents, between 310,000 and 1.5 million. His estimate uses Mexican census data to gauge a plausible departure level for people of other nationalities, and excludes those with formal agreements to leave voluntarily.
