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Data obtained by NBC News shows that immigration and customs enforcement agencies arrested most people last month in at least five years, but are behind what President Donald Trump has promised, and even behind the people of the Obama administration.
The contradiction between arrest and deportation underscores the challenges the Trump administration faces to make Trump’s inauguration day vows to be good to deport “millions of” immigrants.
The agent arrested about 30,000 immigrants last month, according to ICE data. Monthly data has been the largest since it was released in November 2020.
The difference between arrest and deportation was similar to the previous month. The Trump administration detained about 24,000 immigrants in May and over 15,000 were deported, according to ICE data.
The second Trump administration’s contradiction can be explained, at least in part, by the number of immigrants who are not eligible for immediate deportation. The immigration lawyer told NBC News that many of the clients arrested had informed them that asylum lawsuits and orders from immigration judges temporarily prevented deportation.
Since February, the Trump administration has averaged 14,700 deportations per month. That’s well below the monthly average of 36,000 in 2013, when the Obama administration was the most deported. From February to April 2024, the Biden administration deported an average of 12,660 immigrants, according to ICE data obtained by NBC News. (The Biden administration’s deportation numbers included a surge in migrants arrested at the southern border due to customs and border security.)
The records before the arrest were set in January 2023, when ICE detained 18,170 people, according to agency data.
The Trump administration is trying to quickly track many of those with pending asylum cases by ending the lawsuit, placing them in a “quick removal” pass without a hearing, and deporting them to another third country to their country by ordering them to leave on orders.
Coupled with deportation at roughly the same speed, numerous arrests also caused overcrowding in ice facilities. Despite Congress funding 41,500 beds, senior administrators say about 60,000 migrants are in custody in detention facilities. Immigrants in ice detention complained about hygiene, medical care, food shortages and access to bedding and laundry at the facility.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Department of Ice Falling Homeland Security, said she argued that “overcrowding or subprime conditions are decisively wrong.”
“All detainees have the opportunity to receive appropriate diet, treatment and communicate with their families and attorneys,” she said in a statement. “As we arrested and removed criminally illegal aliens and public safety threats from the United States, ICE worked diligently to gain more necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding.”
McLaughlin also refused to say whether the Trump administration has deported more than 253,000 migrants, but includes those included and whether DHS would count those blocked by the Coast Guard, voluntarily leaving or immigrants turning around the border. Deportation data reviewed by NBC News includes data that have been arrested on both customs and border protection and ice, as well as returned to third countries that agree to retrieve them.
The passage of “One Big Beautiful Bill” by Congress is expected to provide ICE $45 billion in detention funding and triple the ability to detain immigrants.
The Supreme Court ruled in late June that the Trump administration could, at least temporarily, expel immigrants to countries other than their own country. The ruling could speed up deportation by sending immigrant deportation to others based on the fear of persecution and torture if the Trump administration could skirt the trial of immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Christi Noem recently announced that Guatemala and Honduras have agreed to bring more foreigners back from the United States.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
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