The United States government has reported a historic high in deportations and arrests this fiscal year, surpassing previous records.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out 483,200 deportations and more than 491,000 immigration arrests in 2026.

The total number of deportations breaks all records in ICE’s 23-year history, including the previous record of 442,640 deportations made in 2025.

The report comes days after US President Donald Trump acknowledged his administration’s immigration crackdown may have been “too tough”.

“Fiscal Year 2026 saw the highest number of ICE deportations and arrests for any year in ICE’s history. September 2026 was the best September in ICE’s history in terms of arrests,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement.

ICE said it made more than 48,000 arrests in September, ending a two-month run of record highs that reached 50,925 in August.

Vague figures?

“There is no question the administration has increased enforcement more than any prior president. There’s also evidence that the illegal immigrant population has declined significantly because of increased out-migration due to a fear of enforcement,” Steven Camarota, director of research for the Washington, DC-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told Al Jazeera.

However, he highlighted ambiguity in the figures DHS released.

“Of course the data is always incomplete and it’s difficult to measure. On the specific numbers released today, the big issue that I have not been able to determine is what percentage of these individuals are interior enforcement and what percentage are removals from the interior of the United States and what percentage are those turned around at the border or at airport.

“Increased removals, sometimes called deportation, certainly can encourage more people to go home, and clearly that is a central goal of this administration,” Camarota concluded.

‘Too tough’

Trump has acknowledged that his administration’s immigration policies “might be too tough”.

“A lot of people would say it is great but a lot of people would think it is too tough,” Trump said in a recent interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.

Trump, however, defended his performance. “For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out; I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation or breaking of the law that was they came into the country illegally.”

Trump’s immigration crackdown has become a political vulnerability, with his approval rating on the issue falling to 38 percent from 50 percent at the start of his presidency, based on Reuters/Ipsos polling.

‘We will rip ICE apart’

The Democrats appear to be gearing up to halt Trump’s immigration crackdown when they take control of Congress next year. They plan to target ICE tactics ⁠and expand paths to legal status, despite limits on ⁠how much they can achieve.

“We will investigate the administration weaponising DHS against Americans (and) its out of control immigration policies,” Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the soon-to-be chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Reuters news agency in a statement.

At a news conference in the US Capitol with House members and newly elected representatives from southwestern border states, Henry Cuellar, a centrist Texas Democrat, ‌said he had already had conversations with Trump officials about focusing deportation efforts on criminals.

“We’re not going to be extreme,” Cuellar said, nodding to conservative voters across the US who cast their votes for Democrats.

But a number of Democratic voices sounded firmer.

“We will rip ICE apart,” Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan said while celebrating her triumph in Minnesota, where federal immigration agents shot dead two people during an enforcement surge in January.

Two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, were killed in Minneapolis, in incidents that were caught on bystander video.

Their shooting deaths have gone viral, prompting international outrage. Other footage shows masked agents deploying chemical agents and beating civilians who were documenting their activities or protesting – activities protected under the US Constitution.