Trump Deported Fewer People Last Month Than Biden a Year Ago

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deported fewer immigrants in February than they did under the Biden administration during the same month a year ago, according to ICE data obtained by NBC News that has not been previously reported.

According to the data, ICE deported around 11,000 migrants last month, the first full month Trump was in office, compared to just over 12,000 in February 2024. One major reason for the higher numbers under the Biden administration was higher traffic from attempted border crossings, both legal and illegal, in 2024 compared to 2025.

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When removing recent border crossers from the total and counting only immigrants who were deported after first being arrested by ICE, nearly 4,300 immigrants were deported this February compared with roughly 2,100 in February 2024.

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Of the people deported in February, roughly half did not have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, the data showed. The number of immigrants without criminal records arrested by ICE and deported increased only slightly from the end of the Biden administration, from 223 in December to 390 in February, according to the data.

While the overall deportation number is lower than Biden’s, Trump’s immigration crackdown has been successful in other ways.

For example, the number of border crossers has dropped significantly.

Encounters along the border are the lowest they have been since tracking began 25 years ago. One reason is that the Trump administration ended the CBP One program that allowed migrants to book asylum appointments via a phone app while waiting at the border. Now, migrants are turned away at the border even if they approach legal ports of entry {snip}

The Trump administration has been slow to reveal its deportation numbers, though it has publicized its arrest and detention figures, which are up compared to the Biden administration. In Trump’s first month in office, ICE arrested more than 20,000 immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security said, a 111 percent increase compared to the average monthly number of arrests during the last fiscal year.

And ICE under Trump is holding 10 percent more detainees than it was at the end of the Biden administration, according to the agency’s public data. At the end of February, ICE was holding almost 44,000 migrants in detention {snip}

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