The president Donald Trump has not succeeded in achieving his goal of deporting a million immigrants per year, despite the tightening of immigration operations, the increase in detentions within the United States, and the billions of dollars allocated to strengthen immigration control during his second term.
A report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), prepared by researcher Marc Rosenblum and published in October 2026, estimates that the U.S. administration was on pace for 660,000 deportations during the fiscal year 2026, approximately 34% below the annual target of one million set by the White House.
The research analyzes information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) obtained through requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
According to the study, between January 20, 2025, and July 31, 2026, approximately 980,000 deportations were recorded, a significant number compared to recent years, but insufficient to meet the pace promised by the president.
Researchers estimated that deportations increased from an annualized rate of 620,000 during the first year of the current administration to approximately 660,000 in fiscal year 2026.
This represents a 26% increase compared to the annual average recorded during Joe Biden's Administration, between the fiscal years 2021 and 2024.
However, the increase does not represent a historical record. The report notes that in the fiscal year 2000, during the presidency of Bill Clinton, the United States recorded approximately 1.86 million deportations, a figure much higher than current estimates.
For these comparisons, MPI employs a broad definition of deportations that includes both formal expulsions and certain returns, so its figures should not be confused solely with the deportation orders executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The failure to meet the annual target is particularly significant because Trump has made mass deportations one of the central pillars of his immigration policy, with an increase in ICE operations and federal resources allocated to locate, apprehend, and expel unauthorized immigrants from the country.
One of the most important conclusions of the study is that, despite the increase in arrests in U.S. cities and communities, the majority of those deported were initially intercepted at the border.
Specifically, 69% of the 980,000 deportations recorded during the analyzed period involved immigrants initially detained at the border, primarily by the authorities responsible for controlling entry into the United States.
The proportion of deportations linked to arrests within the country, however, has increased significantly.
According to Marc Rosenblum, a senior visiting researcher at MPI, the percentage of deportations originating from arrests made within the United States increased from 28% in 2025 to 39% in July 2026.
The monthly rate of these expulsions also increased. During the first three months of Trump's second term, an average of 8,000 deportations per month resulting from interior detentions was recorded, compared to approximately 19,000 per month between May and July 2026.
These figures indicate that the government has expanded its operations against immigrants who were already established in the United States, although this increase is still not enough to meet the announced annual target.
The research also reveals that a considerable portion of those affected had been living in U.S. territory for years.
Among the deportations carried out by ICE, excluding immediate returns at the border, approximately 390,000 involved individuals who had resided in the United States for at least two years, while about 90,000 had been in the country for a decade or more.
The situation of these immigrants poses additional challenges for immigration authorities, as many have established family, work, and community connections, as well as legal or administrative proceedings that may affect their cases.
The report also identifies obstacles related to the functioning of the U.S. immigration system.
The accumulation of cases in immigration courts and the diverse nationalities of immigrants complicate the execution of certain expulsions, especially when travel documents or reception agreements with other governments are required.
Another factor that complicates the evaluation of results is the availability of official information.
The DHS stopped publishing detailed monthly reports that allow for comparisons of the detentions and deportations carried out by ICE and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since January 2025, according to MPI.
As a result, researchers have had to resort to public information requests, databases obtained from independent organizations, and administrative records to reconstruct the figures.
The U.S. government has disclosed balances that exceed those identified by the investigators, but the differences have not been fully resolved with the available public information.
The research also distinguishes between deportations carried out by the authorities and what are referred to as "self-deportations", a term used by the administration to refer to immigrants who leave the United States voluntarily, in some cases after receiving incentives or in light of the possibility of being detained.
The MPI estimates that between 790,000 and 1.9 million immigrants who had been living in the United States for at least one year left the country during the studied period, taking into account both deportations and voluntary departures.
If immediate returns at the border and departures of immigrants with less than a year of residency are also included, the estimated range increases to between 1.3 million and 2.4 million people.
These figures do not exclusively represent self-deportations, as they encompass various categories of departure. Researchers warn that there is no comprehensive record of all individuals leaving the United States by land, making it impossible to establish a definitive number.
The Trump administration has maintained that more than three million unauthorized immigrants have left the country since January 2025, through deportations and voluntary departures.
However, the MPI considers it very unlikely that this figure corresponds to three million undocumented immigrants, due to the limitations of the available records and the fact that some exit programs may include individuals with legal immigration status and even U.S. citizens.
The White House has defended the results of its immigration policy. In statements reported by The Associated Press, its spokesperson Lauren Bis stated that Trump achieved the largest reduction of irregular immigration in the modern history of the country.
The analysis also examines the criminal history of deported individuals. According to the data used by the MPI, approximately 20% of the 980,000 deportations involved individuals with criminal convictions, while the remainder had no recorded convictions in the examined categories.
This aspect was previously addressed in a report published on October 22 regarding the same study, which detailed how eight out of ten individuals deported during the first 18 months of the second term had no recorded criminal convictions.
In the case of Cubans, the deportation policy has also had direct consequences. A report released in early October indicated that approximately 8,500 deportations of Cuban citizens occurred during Trump's second term up until August 5, 2026, although there is still no consolidated and updated official balance that provides an exact figure.
The MPI study does not provide a specific breakdown of Cubans within its main results, so that calculation comes from an independent source and should not be confused with the 980,000 national deportations analyzed.
Researcher Marc Rosenblum, who previously headed the office responsible for immigration statistics at DHS, noted that the release of data is particularly necessary during a period when extraordinary resources have been allocated to detention and deportation operations.
The director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at MPI, Doris Meissner, emphasized that the analysis helps to better understand the evolution of immigration measures during a time of significant public investment and political focus on deportations.
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