The scale of Trump-era deportations have been significant.
The administration said it had deported 605,000 people between 20 January and 10 December 2025. It also said 1.9 million immigrants had “voluntarily self-deported”, following an aggressive public awareness campaign encouraging people to leave the country on their own to avoid arrest or detention.
An immigrant who encounters ICE can face a variety of outcomes.
Sometimes an individual is temporarily held, then released after questioning. In other circumstances, ICE will detain and transfer that person to a larger detention facility, of which there are several throughout the US.
While many immigrants continue to fight for legal status while detained, if they are unsuccessful, they may ultimately be deported.
About 65,000 people were in ICE detention as of 30 November 2025, according to data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse’s immigration project, a compendium of government data from Syracuse University.
Immigration lawyers have told the BBC that, once ICE detains an individual, it can sometimes take days for families or lawyers to find out where they are.