U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported 483,200 deportations in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from 442,640 the year before. The increase of 40,560, or about 9%, brought ICE's total to its highest reported level. The agency also reported more than 491,000 arrests, including 474,850 administrative arrests for immigration enforcement.
The deportation total describes ICE's work. It does not cover all immigration enforcement across the federal government, which also includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection. How the government classifies departures matters, too. Records released through a public records lawsuit show that a large share of recent departures fell outside the government's formal removal category.
What the federal records show
In a Nov. 11 analysis, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse examined case records from the Department of Homeland Security through Aug. 24. July was the latest full month in that dataset. Researchers counted 42,399 departures for July across the agencies in the database. Of those, 26,908, or about 63%, were formal removals. The rest fell into two categories the government tracks separately. Voluntary departures accounted for about 31% of the July total and voluntary returns for about 6%. A voluntary departure can still follow a judge’s order requiring someone to leave the country.
Those are July figures from a database that covers both ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Applying that 63% share to the new ICE total would mix two different groups and two different time periods. The figures ICE announced did not give the full-year breakdown needed to say how many of its reported deportations were formal removals.
The distinction also changes historical comparisons. In its fiscal 2024 performance report, Homeland Security counted 271,484 returns and removals for ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations. The clearinghouse, using the broader government database, counted 446,180 formal removals in that same fiscal year. Those figures cover different enforcement agencies and outcomes.
What the arrest count tells us
Administrative arrests accounted for most of the arrests ICE reported for fiscal 2026. They are civil immigration enforcement actions. An administrative arrest by itself does not tell readers whether the person had a criminal conviction. ICE's announcement did not provide a criminal-history breakdown for the people it deported.
The arrest and deportation totals also cannot show what share of people arrested during the year were deported. ICE reported how many arrests and departures occurred in the same fiscal year without linking the departures to the dates of those people's arrests.
