Deportation Totals Agree, Details Do Not: MPI and DHS Dispute Who Is Being Removed and the 3 Million Claim

Two sets of numbers about immigration enforcement are in dispute, and they overlap more than the dispute between them suggests. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said it carried out more than 985,000 deportations as of July 12 and says more than 3 million people have left the country since January 2025. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisan research group, estimates about 980,000 deportations, a figure it says is "in line with the department's public statements," but calls the 3 million total "highly unlikely." The sharper disagreement concerns who has been deported, where they were arrested, and whether the administration's description of its targets matches the data.

This report sets out what each side has published, what the underlying records show, and where the arguments rest on claims that cannot yet be checked. Federal data on the question are limited: according to MPI, DHS has not released a detailed monthly enforcement report since January 2025.

What MPI counted

MPI's fact sheet, published in October 2026 and written by Marc R. Rosenblum, covers January 20, 2025, through July 31, 2026. Rosenblum spent 10.5 years running DHS's statistics office and left the department in July 2026; the paper says its estimates rely on publicly available data, including records DHS posted in public reading rooms and data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and released by the Deportation Data Project, rather than internal DHS records. MPI released a summary on October 21, and the full document is on its site as U.S. Deportations and "Self-Deportations" in the First 18 Months of the Second Trump Term.

In MPI's usage, "deportations" combine two categories: formal removals and "returns," which carry fewer legal penalties and generally cannot be contested in court. DHS uses the same combined definition in its public totals, which is why the two figures are close. MPI's central findings:

Source: Migration Policy Institute, October 2026.

The interior share has grown. MPI puts it at 28% for 2025, 34% for the first half of 2026 and 39% for July 2026. Monthly deportations after interior arrests rose from an average of 8,000 in the first three months of the administration to 19,000 in May through July 2026. Total monthly deportations ran between 46,000 and 57,000, and MPI projects roughly 660,000 for fiscal year 2026. That is above the average for fiscal years 2021 through 2024 (by 26%) and for fiscal years 2017 through 2020 (by 42%), but below the 1.86 million recorded in fiscal year 2000 and below the administration's stated target of 1 million a year.

On who is being deported, MPI reports that excluding border turnarounds by CBP, 61% of ICE deportations were of people who had lived in the United States at least two years, about 390,000 people, and 90,000 had been in the country at least ten years. Among those with two or more years of residence, 71% (280,000) had no criminal conviction; among those with ten or more years, 61% (57,000) had none. Across all deportations, 20% involved a conviction. Among formal removals, 31% involved convicted people, compared with an average of 44% in fiscal years 2009 through 2021. The most common convictions were illegal entry or re-entry (23%) and traffic offenses, including drunk driving (21%).

How DHS describes its record

DHS and its leaders have described enforcement as aimed at dangerous people and as a success measured in border numbers and departures. In an October 16 release on fiscal year 2026 border data, DHS said southwest border apprehensions totaled 98,708, a 95% decline from more than 1.8 million a year under the previous administration. The release quotes Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin as saying "strong enforcement works" and that the administration has "made America safer than ever." Mullin was confirmed by the Senate 54 to 45 on March 23, 2026, and sworn in the next day; his record is on his 567 Politics profile.

On total departures, a March 5 DHS release said "3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S.," describing the total as an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 713,000 deportations. That release came before Mullin took office, and it announced that the then-secretary had been named a special envoy. MPI's paper says DHS later cited "over 985,000" deportations as of July 12, according to Politico, and that Mullin announced 845,931 deportations through July 16 in a video that Forbes carried on July 17. The two figures differ, and 567 Politics did not open the Politico or Forbes items.

The department answered the MPI paper publicly. On October 25, DHS called the report "FAKE NEWS" in a post on X, according to the Hindustan Times, and said most ICE removals involved migrants arrested inside the United States. It also said the country had recorded 17 months with zero releases of migrants at the border and repeated its claim of more than 3 million departures, which it described as net negative migration for the first time in more than 50 years. The Hindustan Times reported that the department's post "did not include a detailed breakdown to reconcile its position with MPI's findings." 567 Politics has not seen DHS publish such a breakdown.

The two statements may measure different things. MPI's 69% border share includes CBP turnarounds, which DHS's statement about ICE removals would not. Using MPI's rounded figures, interior arrests account for about 300,000 of roughly 640,000 ICE deportations, or about 47%. That ratio is 567 Politics' own arithmetic, not an MPI finding, and rounding matters. It would be below a majority, but the share has been rising. 567 Politics could not verify DHS's claim with a published figure.

The 3 million claim

The largest gap is in the count of people who left on their own. MPI calculates that DHS's 3 million figure would include about 1 million deportations and about 2 million self-departures of unauthorized immigrants. The deportation portion includes border turnarounds and people present in the country less than a year, which MPI's own methodology excludes. It estimates between 790,000 and 1.9 million total departures of immigrants with at least a year of U.S. residence, which breaks down as about 480,000 deportations and between 310,000 and 1.5 million self-departures. Counting border turnarounds and shorter-term residents, its range for all departures is 1.3 million to 2.4 million.

MPI writes that the DHS self-departure figure is "approximately double" its own estimate for self-departures of unauthorized and lawfully present immigrants, and that the DHS count cannot be verified with publicly available data. It adds that DHS's count likely includes some lawfully present immigrants and U.S. citizens who left through Project Homecoming, a program that offers a free flight and an exit bonus of up to $2,600. A DHS and Justice Department rule issued in October 2026, according to the MPI paper, found 82,000 departures of people with removal orders or voluntary-departure grants through that program or other known self-departures between March 2025 and September 14, 2026. MPI says the government does not collect data on most land exits at the Mexican border, so neither side can count self-departures directly.

Arrests and criminal records

The deportation totals rest on a separate question: who ICE arrests. The administration has repeatedly described its targets as dangerous criminals. The data tell a more mixed story, and the most detailed analyses come from researchers who obtained ICE records through public-records requests.

In a January 28 analysis, FactCheck.org examined ICE arrest data from the Deportation Data Project through mid-October 2025. It found that about 36.5% of people ICE arrested in the first year had criminal convictions and another 29.8% faced pending charges, which together make 66%. About a third had neither. The share of arrests with no criminal record rose from 21.9% in the first three months to 34.2% in the second three months and 40.5% in the three months to mid-October; the share with convictions fell from 44.7% to 31.8%.

Source: FactCheck.org analysis of Deportation Data Project data.

The Deportation Data Project's own September 8 report, written by Graeme Blair, David Hausman and Phil Neff, said the share of ICE arrests involving people with criminal convictions reached 27% in July 2026, the lowest in the available data, while arrests in June and July set records. The authors attribute part of the increase to cooperation with state and local law enforcement, including detainer requests and arrests under the 287(g) program, and say they cannot tell whether ICE changed its practices or local police arrested more noncitizens. They also note that the number of ICE officers grew from 21,000 in January 2025 to 29,000 in June 2026. The report's disclosure section says Blair and Hausman have consulted for immigrants' rights organizations, and Hausman worked for the American Civil Liberties Union's immigrants' rights project from 2016 to 2019.

Detention data point the same way. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University reports that as of July 11, 2026, 65,765 people were in ICE detention and 46,436 of them, or 70.6%, had no criminal conviction. TRAC's page counted 43,138 book-ins in June 2026.

What officials have said

Administration officials have described the targets in categorical terms. President Donald Trump, whose record is on his 567 Politics profile, wrote in a January 25 Truth Social post, quoted by FactCheck.org, that enforcement targets "Tens of Millions of Illegal Alien Criminals [who] poured into our Country, including Hundreds of Thousands of Convicted Murderers, Rapists, Kidnappers, Drug Dealers, and Terrorists." FactCheck.org cited the post in its discussion of how the administration defines "criminals."

The Homeland Security secretary at the time said in a July 2025 press conference, as quoted by FactCheck.org, that "the Trump administration has specifically targeted the worst of the worst." On CBS's "Face the Nation" on January 18, she said that "70% of them have committed or have charges against them on violent crimes." The White House border czar said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on January 11 that "60% to 70%, of people that are arrested are criminals, bottom line." A senior White House adviser said on Fox News on May 29, 2025, that the administration was "looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day." FactCheck.org found that DHS data "does not provide a breakdown" of the types of crimes behind the convictions and pending charges, so the "violent crimes" claim cannot be tested with public data.

FactCheck.org also quotes David Hausman of the Deportation Data Project: "Someone with a pending charge who is not convicted is not usually called a 'criminal' in our criminal system." Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Justice told FactCheck.org, "A charge is not a conviction." A Democratic senator from Connecticut said on the same Jan. 11 broadcast that "the vast majority of people they are rounding up are peaceful immigrants." FactCheck.org's assessment was that it is "accurate that the vast majority have not been convicted of a crime in the U.S.," but that the data cannot answer whether those arrested are "peaceful." The Cato Institute's David Bier, analyzing nonpublic ICE data, found that among detainees with convictions, 8% were convicted of violent or property crimes (about 5% were violent), according to FactCheck.org.

Administration officials have said that many of those without U.S. charges have convictions or pending charges in their home countries. FactCheck.org wrote that "DHS has provided no data to back that up." On the broader targeting claim, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an MPI policy analyst, told FactCheck.org, "We have no way of knowing if the worst of the worst are being targeted. The government is not giving us access to that kind of data."

The case for broader enforcement

Supporters of the administration's approach argue that criminal history is not the legal standard for removal. Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates lower immigration levels, wrote in a February 5 opinion piece: "Federal law is very clear: If you are in the country illegally, you are subject to removal." He argued that ICE does prioritize violent offenders, but that this "does not mean that ICE should ignore the presence of people who are 'merely' violating immigration laws," and compared the situation to police who arrest people for nonviolent offenses "even though there are murderers and rapists at large." On that view, a rise in arrests of people with no convictions shows that the agency is enforcing the statute as written, not that it has abandoned its stated priorities.

That position leaves the descriptive claims by officials open to the same test. A statement that enforcement targets "the worst of the worst" is a claim about who is arrested. A statement that anyone present without authorization may be removed is a claim about law. The MPI and Deportation Data Project analyses test the first claim and say little about the second.

What the numbers do not show

Several questions cannot be answered with public data.

• Total deportations. MPI's 980,000 and DHS's "over 985,000" are consistent. The sharper dispute concerns composition, and MPI notes that DHS has not published a detailed monthly report since January 2025.
• Self-departures. Neither side can measure them directly. DHS's 2 million figure and MPI's 310,000 to 1.5 million range differ by a wide margin, and MPI's range reflects uncertainty about survey methods.
• Crime types. Whether the share of "violent" cases matches administration statements cannot be tested without a breakdown from DHS. Cato's analysis rests on nonpublic data that 567 Politics could not review.
• Recent trends. The Deportation Data Project says the summer 2026 arrest surge was concentrated in the last two months of available data and that it is "hard to say whether it will persist."
• Funding and capacity. MPI says Congress provided about $240 billion for DHS through fiscal year 2029, including $170 billion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and $70 billion under the Secure America Act of 2026, and that ICE hired 12,000 officers in 2025. These figures bear on how fast the numbers could grow, not on who is being deported.

Related coverage

Enforcement methods are also in front of the courts. Our reports cover a finding of continued warrantless arrests in Oregon, the Justice Department's request to pause a ban on race-based immigration stops in Southern California, a court order restoring notice for unaccompanied children's asylum interviews and an appeals court decision on the diversity visa lottery.

Funding and data notes

Official federal datasets that 567 Politics' system supports, such as FBI crime, Census, Treasury and USAspending data, do not cover deportation counts, so this report relies on MPI's analysis of DHS and ICE records, DHS statements and the researchers cited above. We did not open the Politico and Forbes items that MPI cites. We also did not review the underlying Deportation Data Project files. The campaign-finance system holds no verified FEC snapshot for Mullin or Trump, and missing data is not evidence of zero funding. Nothing in this report depends on campaign donations.

Differing perspectives

How should the results of immigration enforcement be measured and described?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Arrest data show a rising share without convictions

  Who holds it: Deportation Data Project researchers and MPI analysts

  The researchers say 27% of ICE arrests in July 2026 involved people with criminal convictions, the lowest share in the available data, while arrests in June and July set records. MPI reports that 71% of deportees with two or more years of U.S. residence had no conviction. They argue that this does not fit a description of enforcement as aimed mainly at the worst offenders, and that DHS has not published data to settle it.

  In their words: Deportation Data Project, Sept. 8, 2026 ↗

• Border and departure figures show enforcement works

  Who holds it: DHS and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin

  DHS points to 98,708 southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year 2026, a 95% decline from more than 1.8 million a year under the prior administration, and says there have been zero Border Patrol releases. Secretary Mullin says "strong enforcement works" and that the administration has made America safer. DHS also says more than 3 million people have left the country, which it presents as net negative migration.

  In their words: DHS press release, Oct. 16, 2026 ↗

• The 3 million figure cannot be confirmed with public data

  Who holds it: Migration Policy Institute and its author Marc R. Rosenblum

  MPI says DHS's 980,000 deportation total is in line with the department's public statements, but that the 3 million total departures cannot be verified with public data. Its own estimate is 1.3 to 2.4 million departures including border turnarounds, and it calls 3 million highly unlikely. It notes that DHS does not collect data on most land exits and has issued no detailed monthly enforcement report since January 2025.

  In their words: Migration Policy Institute, October 2026 ↗

• Unlawful presence is itself grounds for removal

  Who holds it: Federation for American Immigration Reform and its executive director Dale Wilcox

  Wilcox writes that under federal law a person in the country illegally is subject to removal, with no other offense required. He says ICE does prioritize violent offenders but should not ignore people who are "merely" violating immigration laws, comparing the agency to police who make arrests for nonviolent offenses. He argues that without a serious threat of enforcement, immigration laws are "just words on paper."

  In their words: FAIR opinion by Dale Wilcox, Feb. 5, 2026 ↗