Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported a record 483,200 people in fiscal year 2026, according to Department of Homeland Security figures obtained by CBS News, the highest annual total in ICE's reported history.
The figure surpasses the agency's previous record of 442,640 in fiscal 2025 and is nearly 78% higher than the 271,484 deportations in fiscal 2024, the last full year under President Biden. It is also about 18% higher than the 409,849 removals ICE recorded in fiscal 2012, during the Obama administration, a longstanding agency benchmark. ICE also reported more than 491,000 immigration arrests in the year that ended Sept. 30, including nearly 475,000 administrative arrests — civil immigration arrests rather than criminal charges — another record, CBS said, citing DHS.
ICE reported 50,925 arrests in August alone, eclipsing the previous monthly high set in July, and was still carrying out more than 48,000 arrests a month in September. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement Thursday: "I couldn't be prouder of the brave men and women of ICE, who just broke more historic records." He said fiscal 2026 saw the highest ICE deportations and arrests in the agency's history, that September was the best September for arrests, and that the year's arrest total was "more than all three full fiscal years under Biden combined."
What the record does — and does not — measure
CBS noted that a record in ICE's own deportation count does not necessarily mean a record in formal removal orders governmentwide. ICE's figures do not include all actions by Customs and Border Protection and do not by themselves distinguish formal removals from voluntary returns and departures. Using broader measures, nationwide deportations reached higher thresholds during portions of the early 2000s, the network said. An analysis published Wednesday by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that formal removals accounted for just 63% of deportations in July and August 2026, with the rest consisting of voluntary departures and returns.
The administration has highlighted cases of people accused or convicted of serious crimes, including a Mexican national charged in Virginia in the death of a 2-year-old and a Honduran woman DHS said was convicted of attempting to murder her newborn son in New York. CBS said those examples are not representative of hundreds of thousands of arrests. An August CBS analysis found that in July 2026, for the first time in Trump's second term, more than half of ICE arrests involved immigrants with neither criminal convictions nor pending charges, and that about 6% of people booked into ICE detention during the second administration had convictions for violent crimes. The Migration Policy Institute found that only about 20% of roughly 980,000 deportations by ICE and CBP from January 2025 to July 2026 involved someone with a criminal conviction; among those who had lived in the United States at least two years, 71% had no criminal conviction.
The political bind after the midterms
CBS News national exit polling found 58% of midterm voters said the administration's immigration enforcement had gone too far, 22% said it had been about right and 20% said it had not gone far enough. In a "60 Minutes" interview already covered in earlier reporting, Trump told correspondent Ross Douthat, "I think it was too tough," while still taking credit for border security and the removal of dangerous criminals.
Even so, multiple administration officials told CBS they do not expect the crackdown to slow under new White House chief of staff Stephen Miller. In recent weeks, ICE officials have been instructed to aim for about 19,000 arrests a week, according to sources familiar with the agency's planning, a target set before the midterms. A July 2025 tax and spending law allocated roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security, including $75 billion more for ICE — $45 billion of that to expand detention and nearly $30 billion for arrests, transportation, deportations and personnel, CBS reported. Democrats will control Congress in January, but CBS noted that money already appropriated, and the veto, will limit how quickly they can force a change.