Oversight Project Sues for Deportation Statistics
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 8, 2026
Washington, D.C.–The Trump administration’s deportation numbers should be released with the same transparency, regularity, meaningful metrics, and fanfare as other government numbers, like the jobs report. Americans should be able to track and cheer progress the same way they watch the stock market. It is just as important to our country’s future.
Today, the Oversight Project is taking this case to federal court. On May 7, 2026, the Oversight Project announced an investigation for deportation data, by sending eight targeted information requests, and the unveiling of the Two Commas Compliance Tracker. The purpose of the requests is to update the tracker so that Americans can know how many illegals are being deported.
This followed the Mass Deportation Coalition’s playbook release on March 30, 2026 which laid out a series of policy recommendations to deport at least 1 million illegal aliens in calendar year 2026 so that progress could be established towards deporting all illegal aliens in the United States. Two of the five key principles of the Mass Deportation Coalition directly relate to this initiative: regular and complete data transparency as well as meaningfully defining ICE interior removals as the standard for deportation claims.
The Oversight Project applauds the Department of Homeland Security for the recent shift in messaging and re-embracing the use of the terminology of Mass Deportation. Notably, the Department has recently argued, consistent with the Mass Deportation Coalition, that the President’s signature campaign promise retains popular public support. Now is the time for messaging to become sustained operational reality. To ensure that happens, regular deportation data must be produced to the public.
Legal Action in Support of President Trump’s Promise
Today’s legal action represents the strong momentum of the Mass Deportation Coalition’s efforts to support President Trump’s signature campaign promise, which has been under assault from activists, courts, state and local politicians, and even fellow Republicans since he made them. This opposition has taken many forms: intense lobbying, campaign donations, special interest groups undermining, litigation efforts, activist judges, misinformation, media and information operations, and even violence in the streets.
Our efforts line up with those of Border Czar Tom Homan who has agreed that “You ain't seen s*** yet… This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming."”
In a May 2026 interview with the Washington Examiner, Homan said, “Absolutely. I just had a meeting this morning about that. If you remember, and when I first came in, I said, I said there’s several interviews, I’ve seen recently people are pulling again, and I said we need to be transparent, because my concern was if we’re not transparent, show the American people what we’re doing, who we’re arresting, then we’ll lose faith of the American people on immigration enforcement and historic level. We got to be transparent. I just had a meeting this morning with Secretary Mullin, is committed to putting stats on a more regular basis, which wasn’t being done prior to. I know the stats, because I read them every morning. Every morning on the way to work, I sit in the back seat and read 22 pages of data every day. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be sharing that with American people, and I think Markwayne Mullin’s working on that, along with the White House.”
When asked about the Mass Deportation Coalition he said, “Am I happy with the numbers right now? No, I want more, too. Even though numbers are historic, I want more.”
Today’s legal action is in furtherance of these shared priorities.
Amnesty Threat
Former President Obama famously inflated deportation statistics by combining border actions with deportations. This was an effort to characterize him as the “Deporter-in-Chief” so that he could appear to be tough on immigration enforcement in order to have the political capital to push for mass amnesty via the Gang of Eight bill and DACA.
The Amnesty Lobby has not gone away since then and will still avail themselves of this line of political argumentation. Currently Republicans in Congress are undermining the President’s signature campaign promise with amnesty initiatives like the DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act and the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026. Republicans are also expected next week to take up the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which is bad policy that has over time proven to exacerbate flows to the U.S. border by treating nationals of noncontiguous countries differently and driving them towards labor and sex trafficking sponsors. The TVPRA has also been a feeding ground for left-wing NGOs that are in litigation against the Trump administration, running counter to the War on Fraud and the efforts of DOGE.
Proponents of amnesty and Republicans supported by the deeply funded special interest lobby that benefits from illegal labor are sure to rely on inflated claims of deportation statistics in order to make the argument that enough progress has been made to justify an amnesty. President Trump and his administration shouldn’t be subjected to this political threat that would serve as a distraction and undermine confidence in the commitment to to carry out his signature campaign promise.
These amnesty threats also undermine the Trump administration’s efforts to mitigate the damage from the disastrous birthright citizenship decision by the Supreme Court. Increasing the number of non-citizens in the United States would obviously increase the number of birthright citizens.
Shifting Numbers
The key data point our lawsuits seek to obtain is deportation data, to be understood as interior enforcement. These executed deportations carry with them bars to re-entry and are known numbers at this very moment inside the Department of Homeland Security. Our lawsuit seeks to make those numbers and underlying data public.
The series of numbers made public via press releases by the Department of Homeland Security and others routinely refer to broader categories of data, such as border returns and other enforcement actions. Notably, the Department of Homeland Security has also claimed over two million self-deportations, despite reporting which cited DHS figures of less than 100,000 earlier this year.
While self-deportation remains an important policy goal, the Mass Deportation Coalition finds that “meaningful numbers of self-deportations will only occur when ICE deportations significantly increase and there is a whole-of-government effort to encourage deportable aliens to leave.” Interior enforcement based on sustained worksite enforcement, and holding employers accountable, will be the driving force of any potential success of a self-deportation campaign. To put it simply, illegals will not leave until they know it is likely that they will be deported or they otherwise cannot comfortably sustain illegal presence in the United States.
There is also a report that should already exist. ICE has published an annual enforcement report every year, covering FY2020 through FY2024, with predecessor Year in Review reports going back to 2016. Congress directed ICE to keep publishing it, no later than 90 days after the close of each fiscal year, with five years of comparison data in a sortable, downloadable, and printable format. ICE’s own FY2023 and FY2024 reports open by quoting that directive and touting compliance as proof of the agency’s “commitment to transparency and accountability.” FY2025 ended on September 30, 2025. The report was due by late December. More than six months later, it has not appeared.
The missing FY2025 report is the point. Americans are being asked to rely on press releases, shifting toplines, and selectively framed numbers instead of the annual data ICE is supposed to produce. A press release is a claim. The annual report is a record. Right now the public has one and not the other.
DHS has put out removal numbers that appear to be contradictory. For example, a January 2026 DHS press release touted that since President Trump took office, “over 3 million illegal aliens are out of the country, as DHS has removed more than 675,000 illegal aliens and estimated 2.2 million illegal aliens have self-deported.” Yet, in its Fiscal Year 2027 budget justification to Congress, DHS and ICE stated that it had removed and returned a total of 442,637 aliens in Fiscal Year 2025–which includes the final months of the Biden Administration. These numbers simply do not make sense. Our FOIAs and subsequent lawsuits seek to obtain actual data in a form that is easily understandable and gives the American people the ability to see the true deportation numbers.
Progress Needed
President Trump has made clear that his goal is to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” That has consistently been compared to President Eisenhower’s 1954 efforts, which based on available research claimed to have reduced the illegal alien population in the United States by an estimated 31% in a single year. With the current number of illegal aliens within the United States not being known, but with estimates ranging above 20 million from the White House, this means that a significant uptick in deportations are needed. In order to arrive at deporting millions of illegals per year, systems and policies must be put in place to get the operational capacity for deportation of at least 1 million in the calendar year 2026.
The Mass Deportation Coalition has consistently argued that the only way to achieve this is by substantially increasing worksite enforcement, despite the objections of the special interests lobby and proponents of amnesty. This is a common-sense policy in order to meet a signature campaign promise. Illegal aliens are largely drawn to the United States for economic reasons and when here, they concentrate in areas of illegal economic activity. Arrests and deportations aimed at those higher concentrations will yield higher results.
Mike Howell, President of the Oversight Project and a leader of the Mass Deportation Coalition, offered the following quote:
“We want to see two commas in the deportation numbers this year to demonstrate that the machine is humming and ready to carry out a bigger deportation operation than Eisenhower. Deportation numbers should be publicly available and accompanied with meaningful metrics and data to support them. It used to be this way and restoring transparency would build trust and excitement in the progress along the way.
I’m thrilled that the Mass Deportation Coalition has played such a central role in educating the public about the solutions available to the Trump administration. With strong data, the public will be able to both understand what is happening and also what could be happening. This is particularly important as we measure activity related to worksite enforcement, which is the key pillar of a mass deportation program and largely how President Eisenhower did it and why he still holds the record that I hope President Trump beats.
Our efforts come at a critical time. The Department of Homeland Security is back to saying ‘mass deportation’ but the amnesty lobby is gearing up. We don’t want the amnesty lobby to be able to ‘pull an Obama’ by pointing to inflated claims of deportation to attempt to sell an amnesty action.”