You should take the Trump administration’s most recent immigration numbers with a grain of salt.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had deported more than 527,000 people as of Monday, and an additional 1.6 million people had voluntarily self-deported. DHS declared it was a “record-breaking” statistic.
“This is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” a statement from DHS read. “In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE and CBP, have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country.”
But this number is unverifiable, and almost certainly inaccurate, given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not updated its arrest statistics since January.
“Has DHS ‘deported’ or ‘removed’ 527,000 ‘illegal aliens’? No. Definitely not. How do we know this, even though DHS has STOPPED publishing the underlying data which would let us verify it (see below)?” wrote Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “There are two main sources of removals/deportations: those carried out by @ICEgov and those carried out by @CBP (usually Border Patrol). As of 8/28/25, ICE had recorded just under 200,000 deportations. By the end of October, that figure is probably closer to 260,000.”
As Reichlin-Melnick noted, DHS is likely claiming the much higher figure of 527,000 by including people who were turned away at ports of entry for paperwork and visa issues—which is not a deportation. An estimated 147,961 people were turned away in this manner from February to September.
“The 527,000 figure (which again CANNOT be verified since DHS stopped publishing granular data) is likely only about 50-60% actual ‘deportations,’ not all of which are of ‘illegal aliens,’ and the rest is mostly people with VISAS turned away at ports of entry,” Reichlin-Melnick concluded.
This posturing from the Trump administration comes as DHS plans to replace multiple ICE agents with Border Patrol agents in an effort to crack down even more brutally in its deportation campaign. Its aggression, desperation, and lack of transparency is what produces violence, not the immigrants it’s going after indiscriminately.
The post Trump Brags About Record-High Deportations—but There’s One Big Problem appeared first on New Republic.
