The pace of Trump's deportation flights is so far similar to Biden's

CNN

03-03-2025

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States, but so far, the pace of deportations has held steady compared to last year, according to a CNN analysis of deportation flight data.
The data, provided by Thomas Cartwright of the advocacy group Witness at the Border, which tracks publicly available information on ICE flights, reveals that the number of deportation flights so far are similar to those under the Biden administration.
Trump administration officials have put a spotlight on their immigration enforcement efforts, frequently sharing images of arrests as well as migrants boarding flights to be sent back to their home countries.
The Trump administration has also continued to remove people across the US southern border to Mexico as part of its implementation of strict asylum restrictions, fueling the number of removals even though they don't occur on flights. A Homeland Security official told CNN that the number of flights was slightly higher, at 145 flights. The passenger count on each flight during the Biden and Trump administrations was not immediately available.
The Trump administration's stated goals to detain and deport undocumented immigrants on a large scale have met the on-the-ground realities of limited personnel and resources.
In an apparent workaround, the United States started using military aircraft to return recent border crossers back to their countries of origin only days into the Trump administration. The military flights supplemented the regular Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights, but at a greater cost.
While there are slight changes in the countries receiving flights, the pace is relatively stable between 2024 and 2025. The majority of flights also continue to go to Latin America.
Since Trump took office, the United States has struck new agreements with multiple countries to accept third-country migrants — and in the case of Venezuela, restarted deportation flights.
According to the data, there are 14 countries that are new for this time period in 2025, compared with the same time last year, including Brazil, Panama, and India.
The top three destinations for repatriation flights were Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — in line with previous administrations.
In early February, Guatemala pledged a 40% increase in deportation flights carrying Guatemalans and migrants of other nationalities from the United States, President Bernardo Arévalo announced during a press conference with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The data, however, shows a slight decrease so far in flights to Guatemala and Honduras, and an increase in flights to Ecuador and Colombia.
The use of military aircraft for repatriation flights has sparked feuds between the US and other countries — most notably, with Colombia. In the early days of the Trump administration, a public spat between the US and Colombia almost resulted in a damaging trade war. The two countries later reached an agreement.