Report: Trump falls short of one-million-deportations-a-year goal, with most removals at the border
Washington — The administration of Donald Trump is falling short of its promise to deport one million people a year, the central pillar of its immigration policy. In the first 18 months of his term, the government has deported 980,000 people, according to a report published Thursday by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a figure above those of Joe Biden and Trump's first term, but below the numbers recorded under Barack Obama and other previous presidents.
Since the White House stopped publishing official monthly deportation statistics, MPI built its own estimate using data obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and from the Deportation Data Project at the University of California. For fiscal year 2026, which ended September 30, the report estimates about 660,000 deportations, 26% more than the 2021–2024 average, but far from the president's one-million-a-year goal and below the 1.86 million of fiscal year 2000.
The analysis shows that, although encounters at the Mexico border are at historic lows due to the near-total elimination of asylum, 69% of deportations involved people apprehended at the border, with the remaining 30% (about 300,000) being migrants detained inside the country, many with years of U.S. residence. "Despite everything happening in the interior, most deportations still result from border encounters," said Marc Rosenblum, the report's author and former executive director of DHS's Office of Homeland Security Statistics.
The study also contradicts the administration's narrative about deportees' profiles: only 31% had criminal records, compared with a 44% average between 2009 and 2021; the most common convictions were for illegal entry or reentry and for traffic offenses. Deportations from the interior, however, accelerated from 8,000 to about 19,000 per month in recent months, with record arrests above 50,000 a month, and voluntary departures multiplied tenfold, to 170,000.
Photo: El País
Source: El País