ICE deported 483,200 people in fiscal year 2026, the highest annual total in the agency’s history, according to new Department of Homeland Security figures obtained by CBS News. The number surpasses the previous record of 442,640 set one year earlier.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement also reported more than 491,000 immigration arrests in the fiscal year that ended September 30, including nearly 475,000 administrative arrests, another record. Administrative arrests are arrests for civil violations rather than criminal charges. The deportation total is about 18 percent higher than the 409,849 removals recorded in fiscal year 2012 and nearly 78 percent higher than the 271,484 recorded in fiscal year 2024. ICE made 50,925 arrests in August alone, above the previous monthly high set in July, and still more than 48,000 a month in September.
For readers, the numbers show how far interior enforcement now reaches into American communities, far from the border. They also land at a delicate political moment. In CBS News exit polling from the 2026 midterms, 58 percent of voters said the administration’s immigration enforcement had gone too far. President Trump told “60 Minutes” that the crackdown was “too tough,” even as he elevated Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff.
Two counts, two pictures
ICE’s deportation figures include voluntary departures and returns. They do not match the governmentwide totals that include Customs and Border Protection actions and that separate formal removals, voluntary returns and voluntary departures. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, known as TRAC, obtained case-by-case records through litigation under the Freedom of Information Act. TRAC found that formal removals made up just 63 percent of deportations in July and August 2026.
TRAC’s data show removals climbed early in the second Trump term and then fell. The agency recorded 39,893 removals in February 2025. By July 2026, that number had dropped to 26,908, a decline of 13 percent. TRAC projects about 316,312 removals for all of fiscal 2026, well below the 446,180 recorded in fiscal 2024, the final full year of the Biden administration.
The gap between the two counts is the detail most coverage misses. ICE’s record is built partly on voluntary departures and returns, which do not require a formal removal order. That is why the administration can point to a record while a separate count of formal removals shows a decline.
Who is being arrested
The Trump administration has described the campaign as a public safety mission and has highlighted arrests of people accused of serious crimes. CBS News found that in July 2026, more than half of ICE arrests involved immigrants who had neither criminal convictions nor pending criminal charges. About 6 percent of people booked into ICE detention during the second Trump administration had convictions for violent crimes.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, found that only about 20 percent of roughly 980,000 deportations carried out by ICE and CBP between January 2025 and July 2026 involved someone with a criminal conviction. Among deported immigrants who had lived in the United States for at least two years, 71 percent had no criminal conviction.
What comes next
Immigration officers have been instructed to aim for about 19,000 arrests per week, according to sources familiar with the agency’s planning. That target was set before the midterms and is well above the agency’s historical pace. A sweeping tax and spending law signed in July 2025 allocated roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security, including $75 billion in additional funding for ICE. Of that, $45 billion was designated to expand detention capacity and nearly $30 billion for arrests, transportation and deportation operations.
Democrats prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress in January, and some have voiced support for more scrutiny of the administration’s immigration operations. Their ability to force changes could be constrained by the money already appropriated for ICE and by presidential veto power.
Did ICE deport more people in 2026 than ever before?
Yes, by ICE’s own count. The agency reported 483,200 deportations in fiscal year 2026, surpassing the previous record of 442,640 in fiscal 2025. That figure includes voluntary departures and returns. Formal removal orders accounted for only 63 percent of deportations in July and August 2026, according to TRAC, and the total number of formal removals fell compared with the start of the second Trump term.
ICE’s enforcement campaign has reached a scale the agency itself calls historic. The question for the final two years of the Trump presidency is whether that scale can hold the confidence of a public that increasingly says the tactics have gone too far. Trump has said he wants to work with congressional Democrats on immigration legislation. Check back for updates.
