980,000 deportations in 18 months under Trump, new report finds — below the 1 million target
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAThe Department of Homeland Security oversaw about 980,000 deportations in the first 18 months of President Donald Trump's second term, according to a report published October 22 by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.
The report, authored by Marc Rosenblum, a former head of the DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, was built from data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests after DHS stopped releasing comparable statistics in January 2025. It covers the period from January 20, 2025 through July 31, 2026.
Of the 980,000 removals carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, 59% — about 580,000 — were formal removals, while 30% were enforcement returns and 11% were administrative returns. The report also finds that only 20% of all deportations involved individuals with a criminal conviction; among immigrants who had lived in the U.S. for two or more years, 71% had no criminal conviction.
On an annual basis, deportations are up from the Biden administration and Trump's first term — running about 26% above the Biden-era yearly average — but remain well below the 1 million-a-year goal the administration tied to the enforcement funding Congress approved, and far below the roughly 1.9 million removals and returns recorded in fiscal 2000. The White House published its own tally of nearly 1.2 million people "deported or removed" over an undefined period the report could not verify.
Trump says his immigration crackdown and deportation drive aim to improve domestic security. Rights advocates say the enforcement push has violated due process and free speech rights and has created an unsafe environment, raising concerns about racial profiling. The findings land just under two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.
Sources: Reuters (Oct 22, 2026); Associated Press reporting (Oct 22, 2026).
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