🚷 🇺🇸 Trump has deported 540,000 people, fewer than in either of Biden's last 2 years. But Biden deportations focused on the border, now mainly shut. Trump has targeted those in the country and has removed 230,000 of them, more than Biden in 4 years.

Homeland security officials have claimed that more than 2.5 million people have since left the country because of the administration’s crackdown. Immigration experts and demographers have disputed that figure.

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office says that while the undocumented population decreased by about 360,000 people last year, the overall foreign-born population increased by about 400,000 in 2025. A different study estimated a decrease of between 10,000 and 295,000 in the total foreign-born population in 2025.

Arrests at jails and prisons went up over the past year, but the increase was far exceeded by the growth in what ICE calls “at-large” arrests, the apprehensions of immigrants on the streets, in courthouses, and at homes and businesses. These quadrupled to about 150,000 and made up a majority of immigration arrests in 32 states and Washington, D.C.

They were most common in states like California, Illinois and New York, where local governments have passed laws blocking local jails and prisons from transferring people to ICE custody.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/18/us/trump-deportation-numbers-immigration-crackdown.html

https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/reported-multi-million-decline-us-immigrants-just-doesnt-add

📎 Peter Baker