Who Gets Arrested — Who Gets Deported

October 5, 2025

ICE by the Numbers: Arrests and Deportations, 2009–2025

The Big Picture

When you stack fifteen years of ICE data side by side, 2025 doesn’t mark a new era — it marks a return to the middle of the pack.
Deportations this year average about 22–23,000 a month, nearly identical to 2024 and in line with the mid-2010s. Civil (administrative) arrests, at roughly 240,000 for the year, are stronger than the post-pandemic lows but still below the highs of the early Obama years.

In short: the machinery is running again, but not faster than it used to. What looks like a surge in some headlines is mostly a rebound — and a paperwork quirk that credits more border-origin cases to ICE than in past years. These charts show how the numbers actually move when you strip away the noise.

Average Monthly Deportations (ICE Removals)

Obama
Trump
Biden
2009–2011
32–33k
2012
34k
2013
30.7k
2014
26.3k
2015
19.6k
2016
20k
2017–2019
19–22k
2020
15.5k
2021
4.9k
2022
6k
2023
11.9k
2024
22.6k
2025*
22–23k
*2025 is an estimate based on independent sources (Deportation Data Project, TRAC, Newsweek).
Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; American Immigration Council; HSToday; Congress.gov.
=

ICE Civil (Administrative) Arrests by Fiscal Year

Obama
Trump
Biden
Pre-2014 context (methodology differs)
FY2011*
285,085
FY2012*
262,769
Consistent series (FY2017–FY2025)
FY2017
143,470
FY2018
158,581
FY2019
143,099
FY2020
103,603
FY2021
74,082
FY2022
142,750
FY2023
170,590
FY2024
113,431
FY2025*
~240,000 (≈20k/mo)
*FY2025 is an estimate based on independent datasets (Deportation Data Project & TRAC) and a mid-year pace of ~20k/month.
Sources: ICE Annual Reports FY2017–FY2024; OHSS/USAFacts arrest series; DHS Enforcement Actions (2011–2012).

Written for TrailMix.cc by Craig Crawford. Research and data verification assisted by ChatGPT.

Watch & Discuss

Catch our video segment breaking down the numbers:
👉 ICE Arrests Doubled | Stat Dude Reports

Read the Trail Mix Brief:
👉 ICE Arrests Doubled | Details & Sources

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Sources

👉 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Annual Reports Index

👉 ICE Enforcement & Removal Statistics Dashboard

👉 ICE Annual Report FY 2024 (PDF)

👉 ICE Annual Report FY 2023 (PDF)

👉 DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics – Immigration Enforcement Actions

👉 Deportation Data Project (UC Berkeley) – FOIA-Released ICE Dataset

👉 TRAC Immigration – ICE Arrests & Removals Tracking

👉 USAFacts – ICE Arrests and Removals Time Series

👉 American Immigration Council – Data & Policy Analysis

👉 Homeland Security Today – ICE Enforcement Coverage

👉 Congress.gov – Immigration Oversight and Enforcement Reports

Trail Mix Briefs dig into the data behind the noise — short reads built for people who still like facts with their outrage. Written and researched for TrailMix.cc by Craig Crawford and team. Data verified by ChatGPT.