Trump Claims on Immigration Enforcement: Rhetoric vs Reality
Published May 15, 2025
Despite deploying innumerable staff from other agencies to assist in enforcement activities and ordering active-duty military to facilitate removals at the border, the Department of Homeland Security’s claims of record arrests and deportations never materialized. This didn’t stop this administration from announcing in an April 28, 2025, press release that its immigration arrests and deportations had “already surpassed the entirety of Fiscal Year 2024 [numbers], and we’re just 100 days into this administration.”
These claims were not simply untrue but preposterous.
Biden’s actual FY 2024 record of 272,000 removals was over twice DHS’s claimed number of 135,00 removals during its first 100 days. So by no means had this administration’s claimed record “already surpassed the entirety of Fiscal 2024.”
But even these claims were gross exaggerations. Instead of 135,000 removals, the Trump administration’s actual number was only around 72,000 removals.
Or using an apples-to-apples comparison, Trump’s average daily rate of removals currently is around one (1) percent below what was Biden’s average daily rate of removals.
This report documents Trump’s actual record both on arrests and on removals, updating TRAC’s February 2025 and March 2025 earlier reports on this same topic.[1]
Trump Administration Rhetoric and Sources of Actual Data
From the beginning, the Trump administration has been waging a media campaign on its successful “stepped up immigration enforcement.” Initially, it announced in social media how many arrests had taken place each day, but when its arrest numbers started falling it stopped issuing arrest numbers.[2] And it featured pictures of individuals in handcuffs boarding military planes to remove them, but never provided actual removal numbers. Now this administration has launched a campaign to convince noncitizens to self-deport to avoid a worse fate at its hands.
As part of the celebration of the administration’s “Historic Achievements” during its first 100 days, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release on April 28 that claimed:
“Skyrocketing Arrests and Deportations: In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, we have arrested over 151,000 illegal aliens and have deported over 135,000. This includes 600 members of Tren De Aragua who have been arrested or deported, as well as thousands of MS-13 and 18th Street Gang members who have fled the country. These numbers have already surpassed the entirety of Fiscal Year 2024, and we’re just 100 days into this administration.”
Rather than providing any documentation to back up this statement, it appears to be suppressing DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) publication of the data it holds. Despite a stated mission “to foster transparency,” OHSS has grown strangely silent. The monthly series on immigration enforcement stopped in November 2024 despite the office’s central goal to publish “objective, credible, accurate, relevant, timely, and authoritative statistical … data products to increase transparency for the interagency, Congress, and the public.”
Fortunately, a second source whose semi-monthly publications were mandated by Congress continued to publish its statistical series. TRAC has been using this series to track immigration arrests, detention, and deportations.[3]
Then as the 100-day mark approached ICE delayed publishing these reports which had come out every two weeks for years. Two weeks went by, then four weeks. Finally, after the 100-day celebrations had passed, ICE belatedly published its data covering the first missing two-week period on Friday evening, May 9. The second missing report was posted the following Monday, May 12.[4] These reports provide the administration’s actual numbers utilized in this report.
What The Actual Numbers Show
Table 1 below compares the Trump administration’s claimed removals during its first 100 days with ICE’s published statistics. Actual numbers show that Trump administration removals are currently one percent below the daily average number of removals during the Biden administration.
On arrests, the Trump administration has had a difficult time sustaining its arrest numbers so after a big push (typically at the end of each month) numbers rose, but then fell back during the following weeks. After a push at the end of April 2025 involving staff detailed from many agencies to increase arrest numbers, the Trump administration currently has arrested each day just 2 percent more than Biden’s average daily rate for arrests.
| Biden FY 2024 | Trump Actual | Percentage Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Average Removals | 742 | 737 | -1% |
| Daily Average Arrests | 759 | 778 | 2% |
As to actual average daily numbers also shown in Table 1, during all of FY 2024 under the Biden administration, there were an average of 742 removals each day. Currently under President Trump he has averaged 737 removals each day, or one (1) percent fewer.
For arrests, Table 1 shows that during all of FY 2024 the Biden administration averaged 759 arrests each day, while currently under the Trump administration there has been an average of 778 arrests each day, or two (2) percent more.
Table 2 provides details on the underlying cumulative number of actual arrests and removals, and how these were derived from the semi-monthly published figures. Removals in this semi-monthly published series are tracked as a single cumulative number from the beginning of the 2025 fiscal year. Since FY 2025 started in October 2025, President Biden was still in office. Thus, to derive actual removal numbers for President Trump, the cumulative number under President Biden had to be subtracted from the current cumulative number of removals to derive Trump’s current cumulative removal numbers of 72,179.
Arrest numbers or “book-ins” following an arrest, the label the published statistical series uses, are broken down for each month making it somewhat easier to derive the current cumulative number of Trump arrests of 76,212.
| Biden | Trump | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual FY 2024 | Claim | Actual | |
| Removals* | 271,484 | 135,000 | 72,179 |
| Arrests** | 277,913 | 151,000 | 76,212 |
Who Is Being Arrested and Deported?
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” He and administration officials continue to call for “mass deportations” to rid the country of illegal immigrants who have broken our laws -- criminals and gang members terrorizing American communities and killing Americans.[5]
However, the Trump administration continues to conceal the most concrete details about its actual enforcement activities. Yes, it trumpets results from occasional raids in a few specific cities and locations. It makes examples of arresting foreign students studying at colleges and universities who expressed views this administration didn’t like. Reports surface from immigrants that ICE agents were waiting to arrest them when they reported to their regular ICE check-ins, or appeared from what they were told were interviews needed to obtain a green card or gain approval of their naturalization application to become U.S. citizens.
These arrested individuals are a far cry from criminals terrorizing American communities.
Yet the lengths the Trump administration will go to achieve its mass deportation goals continues to deliver surprises. What will actually occur in the days ahead remains uncertain. The need for public persistence to separate the Trump administration’s wild claims from reality and to fully document Trump’s actual enforcement efforts remains of continuing importance.