The Trump administration has dramatically stepped up its pace of deportations, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by NBC News, and in April, for the first time this year, it deported more people than the Biden administration did during the same period last year.
In April, the latest month for which the data is available, ICE deported over 17,200 people, an increase of about 29% compared with April 2024, when over 13,300 were deported.
Even deporting more than 17,200 people in a single month does not put President Donald Trump on track to make good on his Inauguration Day promise to deport “millions and millions.” In fact, 17,200 deportations per month is less than half the pace it would take to reach the record number of 430,000 deportations in a single year, set under former President Barack Obama in 2013.
But the pressure the Trump administration has been putting on ICE for arrests and deportations and ICE’s nationwide arrest operations do appear to be yielding results.
In February and March, the first two full months of the Trump administration, ICE had actually deported fewer people than it had during the same months during the Biden administration, in part because fewer people have been trying to cross the border as a result of Trump’s policy changes. It is easier to deport people when they are arrested at the border than to find them at large in the United States. But ICE’s efforts to increase deportations have made up for the smaller number of people being detained at the border.
Deportations in April were up more than 50% over February, when ICE deported around 11,000 people, and almost 40% over March, when just more than 12,300 people were deported.
“One reason we’re seeing such a massive increase is that ICE enforcement officers are finally able to do their jobs,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, under which ICE falls, said in an email. “They are ready to go to work. They are eager to carry out their sworn duty to protect the American people, the homeland, and our way of life.”
April was the first full month on the job for acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who was brought in on March 7, after his predecessor, Caleb Vitello, was reassigned in late February after both Trump and border czar Tom Homan had expressed anger that the number of people being deported was not higher.
Deportation numbers are likely to continue to rise in the near future and beyond as the administration puts more and more resources into immigration enforcement and deportations. A key factor holding down the pace of deportations has been detention space, and since Trump took office, ICE has added 47 facilities to detain immigrants, including through agreements with local jails and federal agencies, for a total of 154 facilities.
ICE has also recently increased the number of deportation flights it conducts, going from eight to 10 per day to 11 to 13, according to Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE deportation flights for Witness at the Border, an immigrant rights group.
The administration is also moving resources from elsewhere in government to immigration enforcement, even ordering FBI field offices to shift agents to those duties. ICE this month announced a contracting opportunity for 30,000 laminated credentials, which would be intended for the increasing number of local law enforcement officers being deputized to enforce immigration laws through a program called 287(g).
Didi Martinez contributed.
