Trump deports more immigrants – but the data are incomplete

One of President Donald Trump’s main priorities – to implement the “biggest deportation program for criminals in America’s history” – is well underway. According to both media reports and official data, US immigration and customs enforcement have increased the number of arrests of people allegedly in the country illegal. But many of this data are incomplete – and what we know also suggests that Trump does not literally cling to his campaign trucks, either when it comes to prioritizing immigrants who have committed violent crimes or reached the promised numbers.

According to data Ice cream sent on xThe Social Media Platform, formerly known as Twitter, the Agency arrested 8,276 people between January 22 and January 31. It also issued 6,577 “Retainers filed” for people, for deportation. This is an average of 828 arrests and 658 imprisoners filed per day – 980 arrests and 762 imprisoned submitted per. Day since January 25, when IS really started to increase enforcement with Wide reported attacks in Chicago and other cities.

It’s a big increase from Last year with published statistics under former President Joe Biden’s administration. In the financial year 2024 (from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024), ICE reported 113,431 arrests or an average of 310 per year. Day. So Trump cracks up on immigration more than his predecessor did.

However, it is not almost the pace that Trump administration has to hit if it wants to reach its declared goal of deports any undocumented immigrant. The Pew Research Center estimated There were 11.0 million undocumented immigrants in the United States in 2022. If ICE were to arrest 980 people and submit 762 imprisoned per year. Day every day to come, it would take over 17 years to arrest or file a detainee against 11.0 million people.

And it’s just based on the data we have. Unfortunately there is No extensive, real -time source for ice cream data; We only know the figures for January 22-31 because the agency announced them on social media and it has not posted any data so far in February. (538 contacted ICE to ask for the missing data but the agency did not respond after pressing time.)

Furthermore, ICE has not published any public data on how many of the people arrested this year have been accused of crimes, violent or otherwise. However, NBC News obtained this data for January 26 and found that only 613 of the 1,179 arrests that day, or 52 percent, were considered “criminal arrests”; The remaining 48 percent had either done nothing other than being in the United States illegal or had committed non -violent offenses. In contrast, 51 percent of the people arrested in the financial year 2024 had been convicted of a crime, and another 21 percent had criminal charges pending against them.

538 also asked ICE for data on the crime of the people who have been arrested during Trump but not heard back. Without this data, it is impossible to know if the Trump administration prioritizes deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes as it has claimed.