WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday that it deported a record number of people during the past year, sending nearly half a million immigrants living in the United States without legal authorization back to their countries of origin.
About 60% of those deported during Trump’s second term had either been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States, rather than being targeted solely for violating immigration laws, a Trump administration official said.
The Department of Homeland Security announcement did not provide details about the individual cases involving the 483,200 people deported during fiscal year 2026, which ended Sept. 30. The agency did, however, highlight several dangerous offenders in its news release.
The figure surpassed the 442,640 deportations recorded the previous year, a total that included part of Trump’s first year back in office.
Both totals far exceeded the annual deportation numbers under former President Joe Biden. The latest figure alone was roughly equivalent to three years of immigration enforcement under the previous administration.
“FY26’s total is also more than eight times the number of deportations in Biden’s first fiscal year, as FY21 saw just over 59,000 deportations,” DHS said.
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“FY26’s arrest total includes nearly 475,000 administrative arrests, which is by far the highest total in ICE’s history.”
The announcement came a day after Syracuse University’s respected immigration data center reported that, “contrary to news reporting and public perception, the number of individuals removed from the United States actually declined after President Trump assumed office in January 2025.”
The university’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, based its analysis on data obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation. The records covered the period through August.
The conflicting assessments may be explained by the fact that DHS statistics include people who voluntarily left the United States, according to TRAC. The Trump administration has encouraged self-deportation by offering free flights and $3,000 payments.
“When ICE speaks about removals, in the fine print they usually include removals plus returns,” TRAC reported. “Removals bar an individual from legally returning to the United States for a period of years. For returns, reentry is not legally barred.”
DHS did not provide additional clarification when asked for comment.
