Donald Trump’s administration since his inauguration has bragged that they have deported over 8,000 undocumented immigrants.
NBC News has learned recently that the number of the 8,000 were never deported. In fact, after being arrested and detained, a portion of the 8,000 undocumented immigrants were released back to the public.
The Obama Record on Deportations.
Barack Obama was famously labeled “deporter in chief” by critics in the immigrant-rights community, even as enforcement-first advocates accused his administration of being soft on unauthorized immigrants. Which perception is accurate? With the Obama presidency just ended, a closer examination demonstrates the administration’s record is more nuanced than either criticism would imply.
Carefully calibrated revisions to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration enforcement priorities and practices achieved two goals: Increasing penalties against unauthorized border crossers by putting far larger shares into formal removal proceedings rather than voluntarily returning them across the border, as had been longstanding practice; and making noncitizens with criminal records the top enforcement target. While there were fewer removals and returns under the Obama administration than each of the two prior administrations (see Table 1), those declines must be understood against the backdrop of a significant reduction in border apprehensions that resulted from a sharp decrease in unauthorized inflows, in particular of Mexicans. Analysts have attributed this trend, which began under the Bush administration, to improved economic conditions in Mexico, reduced postrecession job demand in the United States, ramped-up enforcement, and the increased use of different enforcement tactics at the border.
The enforcement priorities and policies, which evolved over the years, represented a significant departure from those of the Bush and Clinton administrations. As detailed below, the Obama-era policies represented the culmination of a gradual but consistent effort to narrow its enforcement focus to two key groups: The deportation of criminals and recent unauthorized border crossers.
The most recent enforcement figures released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on December 30 offer the latest evidence of these trends. Eighty-five percent of all removals and returns during fiscal year (FY) 2016 were of noncitizens who had recently crossed the U.S. border unlawfully. Of the remainder, who were removed from the U.S. interior, more than 90 percent had been convicted of what DHS defines as serious crimes.
Border apprehensions and removals increased in FY 2016 compared to the prior year, DHS reported. In FY 2016, DHS carried out 530,250 apprehensions and 344,354 removals, compared to 462,388 apprehensions and 333,341 removals a year earlier. Despite the increase, these numbers were far lower than the peak of enforcement operations at the beginning of the Obama years, after he inherited a robust enforcement regime from his predecessors. These numbers dipped as new enforcement priorities were put in place, before rebounding slightly at the end of the Obama presidency.
US deportations under Biden surpass Trump’s record
US immigration authorities last year deported the largest number of undocumented immigrants in nearly a decade, surpassing the record of Donald Trump’s first term in office.
More than 271,000 immigrants were deported from the US over the last fiscal year, according to a report released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in December 2024
The ICE report comes just weeks before President-elect Trump, who plans to make mass deportation a cornerstone of his incoming administration, takes office.
President Joe Biden in 2021 had pledged to pause deportations, but his administration ended up expanding it following a surge in border crossings.
The newly released report, ICE said the steep climb in deportations last fiscal year was partly the result of a streamlined process.
More deportations flights went to further away destinations, including Africa and Asia, which did not accept US deportations for years, the agency said.
A majority of the deportations in fiscal year 2024 involved migrants apprehended by border officials compared to those ICE arrested in the US interior.
Roughly 82% of the 271,000 immigrants deported that year were arrested by border agents.
President-elect Trump has vowed to launch the “largest deportation operation in history” when he returns to office on 20 January.
These promises, however, are likely to face enormous logistical and financial challenges.
Leading up to his decisive victory over Kamala Harris in November, Trump spent much of the time on the campaign trail attacking the White House’s border policies.
Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Reuters that Biden’s deportations were insignificant compared to the high levels of illegal immigration during his presidency.
“On day one, President Trump will fix the immigration and national security nightmare that Joe Biden created by launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal criminals in United States history,” she said.
The number of migrant encounters along the US-Mexico border reached a record high in December 2023, but have dropped significantly, particularly in the last few months, and are now at their lowest level since July 2020, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
It also attributed the rise in deportations to improved diplomatic efforts convincing countries to take back more deportees.
Mexican authorities have also increasingly been clamping down on the flow of migrants headed north to the US border.
In June, President Biden issued an executive order that sharply limited asylum which along with Mexico’s help led to a decrease in illegal border crossings.
Since then, the number of individuals released by the US Border Patrol pending immigration court proceedings is down 70%, the agency said.
