U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported at least 8,250 people from California during the first nine months of 2025, with removals surging as the year went on.

The data, compiled by ICE and processed by a UC Berkeley Law School initiative, shows how deportations have unfolded in President Donald Trump’s second term. He promised the largest mass deportation campaign in American history in the lead-up to his presidency.

ICE removals in the state largely mirrored the previous year’s total in the first few months of Trump’s term. Beginning in the summer, similar to other parts of the country, removals ramped up and soon reached levels not seen in years.

From July through September, the agency averaged about 1,520 deportations per month — a more than 200% increase compared with the first three months of the year. At that pace, the agency was on track to deport nearly 13,000 people from California by the end of 2025. ICE reported approximately 4,000 deportations from California in 2024.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment, nor would the agency verify the totals, which are based on a dataset obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Deportation Data Project.

These totals are lower than the actual number of deportations from California because the dataset is limited to ICE removals and some case information is not detailed or missing entirely. Other federal agencies also conducted deportations, including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which spearheaded many large-scale operations at Home Depot parking lots, car washes and other businesses.

The Sacramento Bee calculated its ICE deportation total by filtering for California cases with a U.S. departure date in 2025. The most recent released data includes deportations through mid-October.

The sum excludes roughly 1,750 people who “self-deported” or returned voluntarily under ICE’s definition. There were 70 such departures in all of 2024.

Nationally, the New York Times reported in August that at least 180,000 people had been deported by ICE under Trump. The Department of Homeland Security has argued the number is higher and, last month, stated that 2025 federal enforcement operations resulted in more than 605,000 deportations and 1.9 million voluntarily removals.

If true, UC Davis Law professor Kevin Johnson said the combined numbers would surpass that record number of removals in a given year set by former President Barack Obama.

“It does suggest to me that it may be inflated some, especially since this administration is prone to exaggerating its numbers in a variety of ways,” Johnson said.

California’s arrest spike

ICE arrests in California also surged this year.

The agency estimated arresting 687 individuals in January 2025, according to figures compiled by the Data Deportation Project. That number had nearly doubled by May, when Steven Miller — Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser — publicly and privately directed immigration officials to increase their quotas.

“President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day,” Miller told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in May.

Over the next four months, ICE reported an average of 3,125 monthly arrests in California. By comparison, the agency arrested roughly 5,620 people in the state in all of 2024, federal data shows.

Bill Ong Hing, founding director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic at the University of San Francisco, said Miller’s statements in May coincided with a noticeable escalation in immigration enforcement in Northern California. The clinic and its law students work directly with undocumented immigrants in three Bay Area counties.

“It started out slow, and then it really grew... It’s been crazy,” Hing said.

Hing said the heightened enforcement continued until the holiday season. He expected operations to ramp up again this month and worries the agency will undertake new strategies to arrest large numbers of people at once.

“I don’t know what they’re scheming, what they’re thinking of are easy, efficient ways of targeting larger numbers so I’m nervous that they’re going to come up with other ways,” Hing said.

In Los Angeles, immigration officials have spent months targeting worksites and street vendors. Large-scale operations have been less common in the Central Valley and Bay Area, though targeted arrests have repeatedly occurred at courthouses, ICE-check-ins and federal immigration service offices.

Johnson said “roving patrols” on the streets by immigration agents is a tactic not used by any modern presidential administration. He added that even in the 1950s, during the major immigration enforcement operation called Operation Wetback, the patrols largely transpired in the Southwest. Under Trump’s second term, these patrols have arrived to major cities across the country.

“The administration is doing everything it can to increase its numbers and to make a big public relations splash and say they’re doing something, creating all kinds of controversy and terror,” Johnson said.

About 43% of people arrested in California this year had been convicted of a crime, according to the federal data. Another roughly 14% had pending criminal charges. The remaining nearly 44% were arrested for only immigration violations.

Research consistently indicates that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S. citizens.

More voluntary departures across 2025

Self-deportation, long promoted by advocates of stricter immigration laws, also increased sharply in Trump’s second term.

The idea of undocumented immigrants returning voluntarily has existed for years. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney popularized the term during a 2012 debate and was mocked for it at the time. Now, however, the data suggests more people are choosing to leave.

The 117 voluntary removals recorded in California during the first five months of this year already exceeded the total from the previous 16 months combined. Such departures have surged even further since then.

The rise coincides with the federal administration offering free flights to return, $1,000 and repurposing the U.S. CBP app, called CPB One. Under former President Joe Biden, the app allowed migrants to book appointments at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Trump administration transformed it into the CBP Home app, which allows people without legal status to report self-deportation.

In July alone, ICE reported that 603 people voluntarily left California.

Johnson urged perspective when it came the self-deportations, noting the number in 2025 is relatively small slice of the nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants in California. He believed this year’s immigration enforcement has created a larger issue.

“The real damage is in terms of the climate of fear,” Johnson said. “The terror, the diminishment of the sense of belonging of immigrants in the national community and a real dent into what we thought were true American values of due process, fairness and justice.”

______

©2026 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.