The Republican administration announces 675,000 deportees as it prioritizes raids far from the border, expulsions without court orders, and eliminates human rights concerns in its targeting of detainees

On January 20, in commemoration of the first anniversary of his second term in office, Donald Trump’s administration proudly announced that it had achieved historic records in the removal of foreigners from the country. “In President Trump’s first year back in office, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 675,000 deportations,” said the Department of Homeland Security in a statement.

The opacity of these numbers, which have not been fully explained nor broken down and are impossible to verify independently, has triggered doubts as to whether the statistics are really “historic,” and particularly as to how they compare with the administrations of Trump’s predecessors. In theory, both Barack Obama and Joe Biden deported more people than the Republican’s numbers would suggest, though comparisons are difficult because it’s unclear what the Trump administration’s figures actually include, as there is no legal definition of the term “deportation.” “The administration’s deportation number likely includes noncitizens turned away at U.S. borders and at airports; limited release of immigration enforcement data means it is unclear who is being counted and how,” states the Migration Policy Institute in a report.

In addition, there are important differences in the kinds of deportations that are taking place. The two Democratic presidents focused on the expulsion of criminals, while the Republican president— contrary to what has been repeated constantly by Trump’s own administration — has not discriminated on this basis. Only 25% to 35% of the migrants who have been deported had criminal records. The 675,000 milestone celebrated by the current administration is well below the million annual deportations that Trump set as a goal, in order to achieve his much-awaited “largest deportation operation in American history.” Nor is it above the 685,000 deportations that the Biden administration was estimated to have carried out in 2024 (official data is only available through November), the last year of his term.

Prior administrations focused on deporting undocumented migrants who were delinquents, with an eye to how long the individuals had been residing in the United States (many had been living in the country for decades) and tried to avoid separating families. Trump’s administration has not prioritized either of those factors, and his Department of Homeland Security perceives all foreigners whose papers are not in order — some 14 million people, according to official estimates — as criminals, and as such, targets of its deportation campaign. Many have had pending requests for asylum, and even valid work permits.

Juan, who did not want to publish his real name out of fear of retaliation, was one of them. “I told agents that I had a work permit, that I had an asylum case pending, but they didn’t listen to reason,” he told EL PAÍS in a telephone interview from Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic.

Former President Biden, who was highly criticized for allowing widespread access of undocumented immigrants in the first years of his administration, stepped on the gas pedal during his final two years in the White House and in total, deported some two million people (including expulsions and those who were returned without an order for deportation, including for administrative factors such as the withdrawal of an application for asylum). That figure does not include those who were expelled under Title 42, a policy created during Trump’s first administration and implemented during the coronavirus pandemic, between March 2020 and May 2023, through which entry to the country was denied to more than three million people.

While the ambiguity of reported numbers makes comparison between the administrations confusing, the way in which Trump’s government has applied its immigration policy leaves no doubt as to their differences. Up until January of last year, undocumented individuals who had no pending criminal charges could work and build their lives with little concern. But since Trump returned to the White House, the aggressive attitude of immigration agents, who have taken to the streets of major cities with their faces hidden behind masks, breaking car windows and breaking into homes, has rapidly created a climate of fear. In addition, Trump has put an end to his predecessors’ policy of prohibiting detentions in “sensitive locations” such as hospitals, schools and places of worship. Courts, where migrants must visit regularly to comply with requirements, have also become traps, another place where they may be detained.

Obama came to be known as “deporter-in-chief” due to the high number of expulsions that were carried out during his two terms, which impacted more than three million people. In 2013, strictly defined deportations hit a record number of 433,000, a milestone that has yet to be exceeded. These were what are known as formal removals, meaning those carried out with a court order for deportation, and focused on criminals, the majority being people who were transferred out of prisons. The numbers offered by the Trump administration do not make a distinction between deportations with a court order, administrative removals (in which the individual involved may have withdrawn their request for asylum) and forced removals, generally carried out quickly at the border or at other points of entry. “Often, a rejection at the border consists simply of blocking access. It may not even be registered, or it may consist of a voluntary return at the border or the decision to not allow access to a person. These cases may be counted in different ways,” explains Ingrid Eagly, a UCLA law professor.

Though the current administration has not specified the numbers of different types of removals, it is known that so-called formal deportations have dropped because the court order requirement for deportation has been eliminated, which has moved the practice of rapid deportation into the interior of the country, while other administrations limited the practice to the border. “To the extent that people are deported simply by the decision of an official, through the expedited deportation procedure and without full due process, I think it’s fair to ask whether these deportations would also be considered formal,” Eagly notes.

Juan came to the United States to find work after fleeing Venezuela. On October 12, he was deported to Dominican Republic. A month and a half earlier, a van full of immigration agents had arrived unexpectedly at six in the morning at his place of work in Pennsylvania, where they detained him along with another 32 workers.

He had crossed the border with his wife and two children one year before, with an appointment to request asylum that they had received through the CBP One application, a program created by the Biden administration to reduce undocumented immigration, and which Trump canceled on his first day in office. Juan and his family lived in New York, but he moved to Pennsylvania for a temporary job as an electrician.

During the raid, he experienced the kind of brutality from immigration agents that hit a new peak in January of this year with the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti, which have led to numerous protests around the country. “Some people they elbowed, others they kicked. They threw one woman to the ground and split her lip. They threw me down as well and beat me before handcuffing and shackling me,” he remembers. Along with the other detainees, he was transferred to a detention center in Louisiana and for several days, was barred from communicating with his wife, who had just given birth and was waiting for him in New York.

An immigration judge denied him asylum for having entered the country illegally — an interpretation contested by Juan, who arrived with a CBP One appointment — and deported him. He was not allowed to leave of his own accord, an option that in theory, is promoted by the current administration, and which would make returning to the country more possible. Since he was removed by the state, he will have to wait at least 10 years to re-enter. His family remains in New York. “Now I have a dilemma, because my daughter is a U.S. citizen and my wife’s asylum request has been approved,” he says. But his dream is not to return to the United States, where he is not wanted — but rather, to Venezuela, should a change in government take place.

David Hausman, an assistant law professor at UC Berkeley who created a guide to immigration enforcement, sees detentions in the streets carried out by ICE, which have multiplied 11-fold, as “a new phenomenon” and says that detentions of people with no criminal record have multiplied sevenfold.

The shift in detentions to the interior of the country has taken place in large part because border closures have reduced encounters between agents and those attempting to cross to historic lows. Last year there was an average of 7,000 crossings per month, compared with 88,000 in 2024. In December 2023, the high point for entries, that number rose to 250,000, according to Migration Policy Institute. Left without migrants to detain at the border, the agency charged with the task, Border Patrol, has moved inside the country to help ICE in its raids.

“Deportations at the border reduced considerably in 2025 (and were already going down dramatically during the last year of the Biden administration), while deportations from inside the country have gone up drastically. Both trends are consistent with a greater application of migratory laws. As such, comparing the total number of deportations over time does not reflect the true situation,” says Hausman.

Translated by Caitlin Donohue.

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