WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that an estimated 2.5 million illegal aliens have left the country since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Trump Administration is shattering historic records with more than 2.5 million illegal aliens leaving the U.S. DHS has deported more than 605,000 illegal aliens and another 1.9 million have self-deported. Since January 20, DHS has arrested more than 595,000 illegal aliens,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press statement.
While the department’s tallies of deportations are meticulously kept, the number of illegal immigrants who have self-deported is just an estimation as a vast majority of migrants leaving without informing the government. At President Donald Trump’s six-month mark in office, the Department of Homeland Security reported 150,000 deportations with a combined total of 1.6 million illegal immigrants having left the country. However, DHS only recorded roughly 13,000 migrants who have self-deported. These self-deportations were tracked by the CBP Home App created by the Department, which gave illegal immigrants a free flight and a $1,000 bonus for leaving the country.
The Department of Homeland Security told CBS News at the time that it based the estimation of the remaining self-deportations from numbers from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but it did not explain how the estimation was calculated.
Since July the number of deportations have nearly quadrupled — jumping from 150,000 to 605,000 in the span of between four to five months.
A major turning point for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement operations can be stemmed from Trump signing into law the Once Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allotted close to $170 billion to serve immigration enforcement operations, which includes $45 million to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention capacity and $30 billion for ICE personnel and enforcement operations.
Since the bill’s enactment, immigration enforcement operations have been conducted in Democrat-run cities like Chicago, Illinois, Portland, Oregon, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The increased presence of federal officers has led to widespread protests by individuals raising concerns over the tactics of ICE agents. Some protesters have accused the federal agents of violating protocol and indiscriminately making arrests while targeting Latino communities.
Last week, a federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled in favor of an immigrant rights group, who sued the government over the policy “arrest first, ask questions later,” which lowered the standard for which officers could make warrantless arrests of illegal immigrants.
However, the Trump administration asserted that their operations are targeting the “worst of the worst” of illegal immigrants, focusing their efforts on arresting individuals with a criminal history. The Department shared that 70% of illegal immigrants arrested have been charged or convicted of a crime. This week, the Department launched a new website titled “The Worst of the Worst” which showcases the illegal immigrants who have been charged with brutal crimes such as sex abuse of minors.
“As the media whitewashes the facts, day in and day out, our brave men and women of ICE risk their lives for the American people,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Americans don’t have to rely on the press for this information – with this transparent tool, they can see for themselves what public safety threats were lurking in their neighborhoods and communities.”