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President Donald Trump marked the first year of his second administration Sunday night, touting what he called major successes as new analyses highlighted a sharp increase in deportations and a steep decline in illegal border crossings.
An analysis by The New York Times estimated that roughly 540,000 immigrants have been removed since the president took office a year ago. The figures include about 230,000 people arrested and deported from within the United States, approximately 270,000 removed after being apprehended at the border, and roughly 40,000 who accepted stipends to voluntarily “self-deport.”
“The number of deportations from interior arrests since Mr. Trump took office is already higher than the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration,” the Times analysis said. “It offers the clearest measure of the impact of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and expansive efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of people.
The Department of Homeland Security has cited higher overall numbers. In a December memo, DHS said more than 2.5 million immigrants had left the United States as a result of the administration’s immigration policies, including an estimated 1.9 million self-deportations and more than 622,000 formal deportations.
“In less than a year, President Trump has delivered some of the most historic and consequential achievements in presidential history — and this administration is just getting started,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making America safe again and putting the American people first. In record-time we have secured the border, taken the fight to cartels, and arrested thousands upon thousands of criminal illegal aliens. Though 2025 was historic, we won’t rest until the job is done,” she added.
According to DHS, border crossings are down 93 percent compared with a year earlier. The agency said apprehensions at the Southwest border have fallen to an average of 245 per day, and that from May through November, Border Patrol released zero illegal immigrants into the country. DHS reported 73,329 total apprehensions along the Southwest border under the Trump administration, 53 percent fewer than the monthly average during the Biden administration.