A Migration Policy Institute analysis of federal data finds that most removals still begin at the border, but arrests inside the country are driving a growing share, a trend Bay Area immigration lawyers say they are now seeing on the street.
The Department of Homeland Security carried out about 980,000 deportations in the first 18 months of President Trump’s second term, according to an analysis released this week by the Migration Policy Institute, a pace higher than under the Biden administration or Mr. Trump’s first term but short of the White House’s stated goal of one million a year.
The figure, drawn from federal data obtained through public-records requests, is the institute’s first estimate of total deportations for the current term, and the most detailed independent accounting yet of the administration’s central domestic project. Its most consequential finding for California is not the total but the trend inside it: deportations that begin with an arrest in an American community, rather than at the border, are rising quickly.
What the numbers measure
The institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, counts both formal removals and “returns,” a category that includes voluntary departures. Under that definition, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection completed about 980,000 deportations between Jan. 20, 2025, and July 31, 2026.
On an annualized basis, the administration was on track for about 660,000 deportations in the 2026 fiscal year, the analysis found. That is 26 percent above the average for fiscal years 2021 through 2024, but well below the 1.86 million recorded in fiscal 2000, when returns at the southern border were far more common.
The analysis relies on data released by C.B.P. under the Freedom of Information Act and ICE records obtained by the University of California’s Deportation Data Project. The analysis was written by Marc Rosenblum, a visiting senior fellow who formerly ran the department’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics. DHS has not released a detailed monthly enforcement report spanning ICE and C.B.P. since January 2025, the institute noted.
A shift toward the interior
Even with border crossings at historic lows, 69 percent of the deportations involved people first intercepted at the border, according to the institute’s fact sheet. About 340,000 were people turned around by border agents, and another 340,000 were people arrested at the border and later deported by ICE.
The remaining 31 percent, about 300,000 deportations, began with arrests inside the United States. That share rose from 28 percent in 2025 to 39 percent in July 2026. Deportations resulting from interior arrests averaged about 8,000 a month in the administration’s first three months and about 19,000 a month from May through July 2026, the institute said.
The people removed after interior arrests were often long-term residents. Excluding border turnarounds, 61 percent of ICE deportations, about 390,000, involved people who had lived in the country at least two years, and about 90,000 had lived here a decade or more. Among those with two or more years of residence, 71 percent had no criminal conviction, the analysis found.
Across all 980,000 deportations, about 20 percent involved someone convicted of a crime. Among formal removals, 31 percent involved people with criminal convictions, compared with an average of 44 percent from fiscal 2009 through 2021. The most common convictions were for illegal entry or re-entry and for traffic offenses, including driving under the influence, the institute said.
The administration has described its enforcement differently. DHS officials have said that more than three million unauthorized immigrants have left the country through deportation or “self-deportation” since January 2025. The institute estimated total departures of immigrants with at least a year of U.S. residence at 790,000 to 1.9 million, and said the department’s figure likely includes some lawful residents and U.S. citizens who left through Project Homecoming, which provides a free flight out of the country and an exit bonus of up to $2,600.
What it looks like in the Bay Area
The institute’s analysis does not break out deportations by state. But local reporting drawing on the same University of California data points in the same direction. Immigration arrests across major Bay Area cities rose 81 percent between July 2025 and July 2026, according to a Mission Local analysis, republished by Berkeleyside. Most arrests in the region have occurred at immigration courthouses and ICE appointments, controlled settings where immigrants come to the officers.
Immigration lawyers told Mission Local that the pattern has changed in recent weeks. Jonathan Abel, who directs the Habeas Institute at UC Law San Francisco, said that “it appears that ICE is going out more into the communities and arresting people at their homes, car stops, or place of work.” Mission Local said it verified six immigration arrests across the Bay Area in the past week, four of which involved violent tactics; two led to hospitalizations, according to an Oakland immigration lawyer and court filings. Attorneys attributed the tactics in part to a reported nationwide target of 3,000 arrests a day.
In a response to Mission Local, DHS said that “ICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers.”
Because the latest available federal data ends in July, it is not yet possible to measure whether arrests in the region have continued to climb this fall, as attorneys expect.
Why it matters for California
California has the nation’s largest immigrant population, so the institute’s finding that the growth is coming from interior arrests, and that many of those deported had lived in the country for years, bears directly on the state’s households and work force. The institute did not publish state-level figures.
The numbers support parts of competing accounts heading into the Nov. 3 midterms: deportations are rising, while the share involving people with criminal convictions is falling.
Anjali Venkatram covers national news and the federal policies, court rulings and trends that reach California, for National News. More from Anjali Venkatram
