Trump deported fewer people than Biden a year ago, but border crossings have plummeted
NBC News obtained data that provides early indications on how the Trump administration is delivering on promises it made about the immigration crackdown.
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.
People who were first arrested by Customs and Border Protection, which typically means those arrested at the border, accounted for most of the deportations in February 2024 under Biden. It is easier to deport people detained near the border than to find them after they disperse across the U.S.
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.
The data obtained by NBC News is also an early indication of whether the second Trump administration is delivering on one of the main promises of its immigration crackdown, which President Donald Trump repeated in his inaugural address: “We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
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