President Donald Trump deported 37,660 migrants during his first month in office, reported news agency Reuters. While this number is substantial, it significantly falls short of the monthly average seen in the final year of the Biden administration.
According to the data from the Department of Homeland Security, about 57,000 removals and returns were reported during the final year of former President Joe Biden's government.
Notably, during his presidential campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of illegal immigrants as part of his largest deportation operation in US history.
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Yet initial figures suggest Trump could struggle to match higher deportation rates during the last full year of the Biden administration when large numbers of migrants were caught crossing illegally, making them easier to deport.
'Artificially high': Trump administration reacts
Meanwhile, a senior Trump administration official and experts said deportations were poised to rise in coming months as Trump opens up new avenues to ramp up arrests and removals of illegal migrants.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, a senior Trump administration official and experts said deportations were poised to rise in coming months as Trump opens up new avenues to ramp up arrests and removals of illegal migrants.
{{/usCountry}}DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Biden-era deportation numbers appeared "artificially high" because of higher levels of illegal immigration.
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The deportation effort could take off in several months, aided by agreements from Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, and Costa Rica to take deportees from other nations, the sources told Reuters.
Deportation under Trump 2.0
According to Reuters, the US military has assisted in more than a dozen military deportation flights to Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and India ever since Trump took the oath of office on January 20.
The Trump administration has also flown Venezuelan migrants to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay.
Meanwhile, Trump also said in late January that his administration would prepare to detain up to 30,000 migrants there despite pushback from civil liberties groups.
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The Trump administration is also attempting to make it easier to arrest deportable migrants without criminal records and to detain more people with final deportation orders.
Last month, the Justice Department issued a memo allowing ICE officers to arrest migrants at US immigration courts, rolling back a Biden-era policy that limited such arrests.