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Guatemalan migrants walk after arriving at La Aurora Air Force Base on a deportation flight from the U.S., in Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 27, 2024. REUTERS/Cristina Chiquin
As President Donald Trump cracks down on immigration, during his first term he deported fewer people when compared with Joe Biden’s administration
MEXICO CITY - U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing ahead with mass deportation plans targeting some 11 million undocumented migrants.
Trump launched military deportation flights to Latin America, invoked a wartime law to quickly deport immigrants alleged to be gang members without court hearings.
Yet while the Republican president is known for a hardline stance on immigration, his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, oversaw more deportations than in Trump's first term.
Deportations under Trump from 2017 to 2020, while high, were less than half the number registered during Biden's 2021 to 2024 term, data shows.
Undocumented immigrants can be expelled from the United States and sent to their countries of origin. Such deportations typically come after a removal order by an immigration judge, and those who re-enter face criminal charges.
Another expulsion route is a 'return', usually carried out at a border crossing or airport, which does not require a formal removal order, can be voluntary and does not carry penalties.
While Trump focused on removals of immigrants within the United States, the Biden presidency had a higher number of returns of immigrants at the border.
Such an approach could have earned Biden the title of "Returner in Chief," according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Nearly 1.2 million people were deported through removal orders during Trump's first administration, and almost 600,000 were returned.
Topping that, Biden's administration returned 1.3 million immigrants and removed more than 681,000 as of August 2024.
Almost 2.8 million other people were expelled during the Biden administration under the Title 42 order, a pandemic-related restriction that allowed the quick expulsion of migrants to Mexico and was officially lifted in May 2023. Under Trump, more than 200,000 people were expelled using Title 42.
Although Title 42 mostly applied to Mexicans, the restriction was also expanded to nationals from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
In sum, the Biden administration deported roughly 4.7 million people in four years, more than twice as many as were expelled under Trump, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data.
Also, in a one-year period under Biden from October 2023 to September 2024, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed more than 270,000 non-citizens, according to its latest annual report.
This number surpassed the removals recorded in any Trump year and was the highest in more than a decade.
Trump faced strong resistance from sanctuary areas - certain state and local jurisdictions that approved laws, policies or regulations that made it harder for ICE agents to track down and arrest immigrants they believe have grounds for deportation.
These sanctuaries will likely come under pressure and may be penalised for failing to cooperate during Trump's second term.
The first Trump administration also prioritised the separation of migrant families and the prosecution of asylum seekers over the deportation of immigrants with criminal charges, according to the Cato Institute, a think tank based in Washington D.C.
It split apart thousands of migrant families under a blanket "zero-tolerance" policy that called for the prosecution of all unauthorised border crossers in 2018.
The American Immigration Council has estimated it would cost at least $88 billion to fulfil Trump's deportation pledges in his second term.
The council calculated that the United States would have to establish 1,000 new immigration courts and build 24 times more ICE detention capacity than is currently available.
In addition, according to the Migration Policy Institute, there has been a noticeable demographic shift in migrant arrivals to the United States, with more arriving from countries outside of Mexico and Central America.
The majority of people deported during the first Trump term were from Mexico, along with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, according to Homeland Security data.
While these remained the top countries of origin of people deported under Biden, in 2024 there were upticks in the returns of people from India (27,060) and China (12,570), and other countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.
The ICE report also showed that people were deported using charter flights to 192 countries, including some like China which once restricted such flights.
This article was updated on Feb 6 2025, to include the latest developments.
(Reporting by Diana Baptista; Editing by Anastasia Moloney, Ellen Wulfhorst and Jon Hemming.)
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